Bread Pudding

Do you have a finicky loved one who hates crusts on their sandwiches? Don't throw out the crusts! Turn them into a simple bread pudding. This I made with leftover crusts from a raisin bread and added craisins. Serving it warm is perfect on a cold winter's day.


Recipe
Soon to come

Fig Jam

There is this giant Fig tree in our backyard. Throughout the season, there's good pickings for months and months. The birds are also the frequent pickers, so have to get to them first. I pick some of them and put in the ziploc bag, store them in the freezer for future use. Now, making figs jam is easy. Just sugar, wine, vanilla extract and water and of course, figs.


Measurement:-
1/2 full 9" x 9" pot
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups Apple Cider
3 Tbsp Vanilla extract
1 cup White wine
Water to cover the whole figs

Methods:-
Just cook until the texture is like a jam. It is all about your preference, whether you like it thick or smooth or light or thin.

Apple Strudel Pie

I've made this pie before, but it's become one of my regular desserts to make. This time, I made it for our friend, Cecilia, in Boulder, Colorado when we were staying there. This, I promise you, will be a hit at any party.

5 am Coffee Cake and 5 am Scones

I call them 5 am coffee cake and scones, because I couldn't sleep one night, so just decided to get out of bed and start baking. It reminded me of the days when I was a baker and used to wake up early and make all the sweets for the customers who would soon be coming.

Recipe:
Soon to come

Homemade Beignnet

It was great going to New Orleans and trying the Creole and Cajun food. Everyone told me I had to go to Cafe Du Monde and have a beignnet and a cup of coffee. I thought, first of all, that it was very interesting, that it wasn't New Orleans natives that were working in the restaurant, actually everyone was Vietnamese. The beignnet was fluffy and full of powdered sugar. I knew instantly I could make my own. So this is my version:

Ingredients
Phyllo dough
Coconut flakes
Brown sugar
Powdered sugar

This is very simple very easy, so when you want a little taste of New Orleans, make a batch of these.

Pear Cobbler

If you have a pear tree that's dropping pears faster than you and your neighbors can eat them, make this recipe. It's soooo good warm with some ice cream or better yet, I served it with some warm coconut cream and drizzled it on top.

Ingredients

• 8 pears, cored and sliced


• 1 1/2 cups sugar


• 1 stick butter


• 3 eggs


• 1/2 cup water


• 1/2 cup vegetable oil


• 1 cup flour
  

Recipe

Layer the pears in a glass or ceramic pan
Stir together the sugar, butter and eggs
Then add in water and oil
Finally stir in the flour
Pour this mixture all over the layered pears
Bake at 350 until brown, and a little crisp, about 40 minutes

Baking is easy as pie, well, in this case, easy as pear cobbler, :)

Soft Shortbread cookies

Usually shortbread is so hard, I like this recipe because the shortbread comes out nice and soft. The secret is not to overbake it. If you like things soft, always underbake it, that's why Mrs. Field's was so successful. I like it this way.

Ingredients
- 1 cup cold butter, cubed
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- salt
- 1 tbsp cold water
- 1 tsp vanilla

Recipe
Mix the ingredients together
Knead with your hands
Cover in saran wrap
Put in fridge for 1 hour
Take out of fridge
Roll out with rolling pin
Cut whatever shape you want
Bake 325 for 15 minutes

After cools down, spread filling like an oreo, and create a shortbread sandwich!
(I used my apple strudel filling. Note that this is used in so many of my recipes. You can make a batch, and put it in the freezer, and just take out what you need and use in countless dishes)

Coffee Cake with Apple Strudel Topping

My tip here is if you don't have sour cream, DON'T RUN TO THE STORE. If a recipe calls for sour cream, simply add some vinegar to some milk, and stir until it curdles. Then add it to the recipe, and you have just added sour cream. Here I used for a coffee cake I made, and added my apple strudel recipe on top.

Queer Dada

It's really called Kueh Dada, but this was for dessert at a gay party, so the name stuck. It's a Malaysian dessert, the place where I'm from, so it was fun introducing it to my friends. It's sweet and coconutty, so if you like both of those, you'll love this.

Recipe:
To Come

Soft Gingerbread Cookies

You know what I'm talking about - those storebought gingerbread cookies are hard as a rock. I made this recipe up an hour before meeting my boyfriend's family for Thanksgiving, because I wanted to give everyone a little treat. We didn't even have cookie cutters, that's ok! We drew out a gingerbread pattern from online, made a wax paper template, and cut them out ourselves from the dough!

• 2 Eggs
• butter - softened- 1 1/2 sticks
• Vanilla extract - 1 tbsp
• Brown sugar - 1 cup
• white sugar - 1 cup
• ginger powder - 2 tbsp
• maple syrup (leftover from a friend in Canadawho gave me a souveneir)
• - 1/4 cup
• baking soda - 1 1/2 tsp
• all purpose flour - 2 cups
• wheat flour - 1/2 cup

Beat butter,brown and white sugar, and syrup until well mixed
Add the eggs and vanilla, and beat on medium until slightly fluffy
Then add the flour and baking soda, and mix well for a few seconds
cool the dough a little in the fridge, roll out, put on a sheet pan, bake at 375 for 10 minutes or less until the edge is a little brown.

Then take out and cut into gingerbread shapes, and add quick frosting touches. You'll have a soft homemade gingerbread cookie that everyone will be talking about!

Creative Cookies

Don't make "not knowing a good recipe" stop you from baking creatively. You don't need any recipe to cook. All you need to do is create what you feel like. For example, my boyfriend felt like having some cookies. I just looked in the cabinets, saw that we had chocolate chips and went from there. Don't know the perfect amounts of each item? That's ok! Cooking is always an experiment, and that's how some of the best recipes come to be, by just trying to create something! So here I blended together eggs and butter and sugar and brown sugar. Then I added some vanilla, some baking soda and the chocolate chips. To add a little more flavor I tossed in some milk chocolate toffee chips. Within 10 minutes, without thinking, the smell of chocolate chip cookies were in the air. And there's nothing like a warm chocolate chip cookie in the winter!

A Pomegranate Touch

The holidays are soon approaching, and for some, there's the pressure of "what to make", "what will be different". All you have to do is take a simple store mix, and add some leftover makeover, in this case, a splash of color, from a pomegranate. I made a Devil's food cake mix, and simply added a "snowy" cover of powdered sugar, and then a lot of pomegranate seeds for that eye popping look. You can make them into cute little cupcakes and put it on a holiday platter or a nice big sheet cake for that wow effect. The pomegranate seeds give each bite a little extra moist sweetness.

Hazelnut Apple Supreme

I was going to make a basic apple pie. Then, this beautiful green squash in the garden was calling out my name! Instead of a pie crust, you can fill a squash with fruit filling. For a lot of people out there who don't feel like making and rolling out dough, this is a piece of cake...well, a piece of squash, actually! :)

Ingredients

Roasted Hazelnuts

Apple Strudel filling

Squash

• Roast some hazelnuts in a shallow pan at about 375 until golden - about 15 minutes. Set aside
• Chop in a mini processor and set aside
• Cut the top off a squash, and take out the insides (just like for a jack o'lantern)
• Put the whole squash in the microwave, high power for 10 minutes until soft
• Fill the squash with the apple strudel filling
• Bake the filled squash at 400 for about 30 minutes.
• When serving, Sprinkle the roasted hazelnuts on top

This is an easy, eye opening, delicious dessert for a party or get together

Plumapple Pie

In the summer, fruit's falling everywhere you look. There's plenty of orchards where the fruit's falling faster than families can keep up with it. You're always going to work, and someone has a bag of fruit with a post-it attached with the sentence, "Please take me". If you haven't taken it in the past, TAKE IT NOW! :) When you have a lot of fruit, make fruit pie. I had a lot of leftover apples and plums. The plums were so bruised and broken and battered, that anyone else would've thrown them out. I, on the other hand, made this scrumptious summer pie. I promise you there will be NOTHING left on the plate after you serve this.





Recipe
At first I just made the Plum Jam, but it was so good and I had a lot leftover, that I also decided to combine it with the apple filling from the apple strudel that I had made (See apple strudel recipe) and turn it into a pie.





Plum Jam
3 cups of Plums
2 cups of granulated Sugar
1/2 cup Lemon juice
Pinch of Salt



Cook above ingredients in a pot on low to medium heat until all the ingredients become soft and darken in color, and become sticky, like jam should be. Leave it to cool down .



Arkansas Pie Crust
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 sticks of butter (unsalted, or butter subsitute)
pinch of salt
1/4 cup cold whole milk (or cold water)

• Mix the flour and salt together in mixing bowl
• Cut the butter into cubes
• Mix it all together until becomes crumbly
• Then add the milk (or water) and stir for a few seconds
• Take it out of the bowl, wrap into saran wrap, and put in the fridge for a half hour
• Roll out the dough for a short time, so it doesn't get overkneaded
• Put 1/2 of it at the bottom of a greased 8" pie pan, and put in the fridge again for 10 minutes
• Take out of the fridge
• Brush with egg yolk. Prebake it in the over for 5-8 minutes at 375 degrees.
• Put in the apple filling first
• Then put the plum jam over it
• Put the remaining dough over the fruit
• It's up to you how you "design" the top of the pie. I pinch the sides with a fork, and poked some holes so the steam can come out. Then I brushed with egg yolk, and sprinkled some cinnamon sugar
• Bake at 375 for about 20 minutes until brown
  

Serve with a little ice cream if you like, but trust me, this pie doesn't need it.

Golden Raisin Pound Cake

I try not to just stick to a recipe on a box. It's much better to have fun, be creative and make it more interesting.

Here's an easy way to spice up a dry pound cake. Add some golden raisins and vegetable oil, and egg yolk (instead of the whole eggs) to a pound cake mix. It will make it much moister and sweeter.

Yam Pillows

After Thanksgiving, if you have some leftover yams, make them into something different, with a simple addition of some phyllo dough. Simply soften the yam with ground nutmeg, brown sugar and a pinch of salt in a pot of water on medium heat. Then drain them. Mash the yams. Leave it to cool a little. Add marshmallow. Brush the phyllo sheets with soft butter, and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Spoon the mixture onto the phyllo dough. Roll them up, brush with a little butter, sprinkle some cinnamon sugar on top. Put in the freezer for 5 minutes to get cool. Heat them in the oven on a baking sheet at 375 for 15 minutes, or until turns brown. These fluffy pillows are so soft, but don't sleep on them, simply eat them!

Pocket Full of Peanuts

Again, if you ever have a jar of peanuts that you have grown tired of, make it into something. Make it into this tasty dessert, a pocketful of peanuts and your kids will be screaming for more.

Dough

Flour and water (or from grocery store)

Cinnamon

Sugar

Peanuts

• Chop some peanuts


• Add sugar


• Add cinnamon


• Fill the dough with a spoonful of the mixture


• Close the pocket of dough


• Arrange on a cookie sheet


• Bake in oven at 375 for 15 minutes or until browned


• Eat after cooling off a bit

Apple Strudel

If you have a tree dropping lots of apples, or you bought a lot of apples and they're getting too ripe, it's time to turn these leftovers into apple strudel!

Here's all you need:

10 Apples

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

2 tablespoons Cinnamon

1 tsp Nutmeg

1 tsp Salt

2 tablespoons Butter

Dough (8 Phyllo sheets or any dough from the freezer section of your store)

• Dice the apples
• Saute them in a sauce pan in butter
• Add brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt
• After 10 minutes, it will caramelize
• Pour the mixture into the phyllo sheets. Add some more cinnamon (with sugar if you have it) to the phyllo doll
• Roll the sheets up into a roll
• Put on a baking sheet
• Bake for 20 minutes at 370 degrees

Take out of the oven, cool, drizzle with a little caramel if you have it, and you are ready for a warm winter treat!