Journal # 11: Churros con Chocolate

I love chocolate! Now, who doesn't, right? Churros con chocolate has been one of my favorite rainy day foods. Chocolate is meant to enlighten someone's day and this wonderful combination just brings joy to my heart!

I made churros before and I hate to say this, but, I lost the recipe for it. So I just had to look for another one online. The wonderful thing about churros is it's very easy to make. 

Be sure to follow the exact measure of the ingredients or else the dough will be either too wet/sticky or too dry. 

Got this simple and wonderful recipe from BBC!
Although, I omitted the ingredients that I did not use and added some ingredients too.

Churros
Ingredients:
100g unsalted butter
200ml cold water
175g flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
3 large eggs, beaten
1-2 tbsp of icing sugar, for sprinkling

You start with sifting the flour and baking powder together. Then, combine the water and butter together on a small saucepan. Set it on medium-high heat and let it boil. The moment it boils take it off the pan and add the flour mixture to it. 

Beat it with a wooden spoon until combined well. Let it cool for a bit then add the beaten eggs one at a time. Beating well after each addition. Beat it until smooth and it comes off the sides of the bowl.

Let the mixture cool and set it aside. Make sure it is covered with cling/plastic wrap or maybe a towel, just to keep the moisture in. 

After letting it sit a while, start heating up your deep fryer. To make the churros, use a pastry bag with a jumbo open star tip. Cut them with scissors to the size you want. Fry for 1-2 minutes.

As for the chocolate sauce, this is the one that I've been using. It's a recipe that I can call my own. It's rich in chocolate flavor and isn't too sweet. 

Chocolate Sauce:
Ingredients:
1/4 c. Butter (add more or less depending on the consistency you like)
125g Bittersweet Chocolate (or dark chocolate)
Milk, at room temp (optional)

All you have to do is to put the chopped chocolate in a bowl and set it on a pan with boiling water, let the butter and chocolate melt and stir it up. Adding the milk will help with the consistency you want. :)

Jumbo Churros con Chocolate! c/o my instagram

Feel free to follow me on instagram (@penny4thots) for some pics of the food I make. Also find us on Facebook, @King's Crust fan page. 

Feel free to write on my tab below! :)

Journal #3: Basic Dinner Rolls

I was highly interested in making dinner rolls or bread but I had a problem: all the supermarkets around my area don't have ACTIVE DRY YEAST. So, all that I could buy was INSTANT DRY YEAST. 

The Back story:
My sister has been trying for quite some time now in making soft bread. Every single time she tried, she ends up non-rising bread. We still bake them and they end up as a good pizza crust. I realized then that something else may be wrong.

I, then, searched for recipes online for dinner rolls. I tried to find the easiest ones and so I did. I then began making the bread and followed the instructions very carefully. The part where I had to let my batter sit out to rise or double in size did not happen! I was really frustrated. I did not know what went wrong. So then I read the recipe again. Checked my ingredients if they were still good. Then, I read the label for my yeast. It says "Instant Dry Yeast", I looked at the recipe and it said "Active Dry Yeast."

*FacePalm*

I finally figured out what went wrong. My tip to you new bakers would be to make sure the ingredients that are asked would be the ones you would use, just to avoid disasters. LOL And that you'd READ the entire recipe first before doing it. Make sure you understand what you have to do.

So yeah, I changed the recipe that I was using and searched for recipes that called for the use of Instant Dry yeast. And I found the one called "Perfect Basic Dinner Rolls" by StressBake7 from Yummly.com.

The recipe was very easy and I tried it. My Rolls turned out really great! Although I did some minor alterations by adding herbs to my dough, more flavor for the bread itself etc. 

Oops, where'd the other pesto roll go? *burp*

 The first alteration I did was adding freshly made pesto to the rolled out bread. I baked it at 360 Farenheit for about 15 minutes. It had a good color and aroma. 

You may also use ready made pesto that's available on any store. :)

It tasted really fresh and good. Oh, and before I forget, I reduced the amount of salt in the recipe coz' I found it a bit too salty. 

Eat me! Pestolicioius!

 Based on the picture on the left, You can see that my rolls weren't sealed. I forgot to add water to the side to seal it. LOL. So, to avoid that next time, I plan to re-check every step that I do.

That's really good bread!

The second alteration I did was add some sesame seeds on the bread. At first, without thinking, I placed the sesame seeds on top right after I floured the dough, this is wrong. The sesame seeds fell coz' it had nothing to stick to. So, on the next try, add the sesame seeds on top before flouring the dough and shaping it. Or maybe butter could help. If you forget to add the sesame before you flour, you could finish all the steps first then just butter the top then put the sesame seeds on 'em.

The baking time for these regular rolls are 17minutes. A little more and the bottoms would turn black.

Hmm. Chocolate Bread.

The final alteration I did was add chocolate chips in the dough. Who doesn't love chocolate on their bread, right? I loved it! I added about 6-7 large chip in the middle then sealed the bread. When I tasted it, It seemed that the chocolate was too little. I guess next time I'd add more for more flavor. 

I baked these for 17 minutes too. Their sizes were the same as the the regular rolls. 

 So yeah, here are the products of my perseverance and creativity-ish. I'm not really good at conceptualizing things and creating one-of-a-kind dishes. I'm here to deal with what I have in the kitchen and produce what I think would be best for everybody. :)

I just love baking food, don't you feel the same way? 

Journal #1: Boozy Woozy Cupcake

Last week, a friend of mine asked me if I could bake cupcakes for her friend. When I asked her what kind of flavor she wanted, she said something flavored with "Bailey's" or any other alcoholic drink. In my head I was thinking, this is another creative idea that I must try! So without a doubt, I said Yes!

So yesterday, I went shopping to find "Bailey's." Too bad they're not sold at smaller bottles. So I wasn't able to buy it. I looked for an alternative and I found "Vodka Mudshake Cappuccino". 

I have never tried that drink before so I don't know how it would taste on my cupcakes/frosting.

I got home and I started baking with my sister, Candice. We thought about putting it in the batter and putting it in the frosting. 

I used my usual chocolate cupcake base and added about 3 tbsps of the mudshake. I tasted the batter and it was okay. So I started baking them, then cooled them. 

I was making the usual buttercream frosting instead of adding vanilla and milk I added the mudshake. It didn't work out as I thought. I didn't want to waste the mixture I made so I turned it into a filling. It tasted really good though but it was too liquidy and adding more sugar to stiffen it will make it too sweet! 

Pretty, pretty flower. Oops, I mean Cupcake!

It was unique and tasted great. It was like a mocha cupcake but with booze. 

The filling tasted a lot like coffee cream. I tried it with a cupcake and it tasted great! I topped it with a Dark Chocolate frosting and it is the bomb!

Look at it. I love the way it looks with the violet cupcake liner and the frosting design. 

It doesn't only look good, it also tastes good!

Try our cupcakes and maybe personalize yours! You won't regret it! (facebook: King's Crust)

Journal # -1: Crazy Cupcakes,erm, people, run!

Um, I just couldn't think of an interesting title. Don't blame me, blame my lack of creativity.

The people were and are crazy about the cupcakes. I'm just so happy that the Panda Cupcakes were a hit to the debutante's crowd! I love positive feedback and I love how people appreciate our style and taste for food. 

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes, pretty as they could be!

The cupcakes on the right are the Dark Chocolate Cupcakes frosted with chocolate fudge. Aren't they just pretty? I taught my sister how to frost cupcakes and voila! They look awesome! Plus, it would make my baking load lighter with some extra hands to help around. Ha ha! 

We have a lot more decorating to learn. These are just basic stuff and the more "personalized" orders we get, the more we should learn to decorate. I'm really worried about the wedding though. I think I'm gonna have a difficult time finding an easy way to smooth out a cake and decorate it the way they want it. Any tips? Suggestions? 

I was thinking of buying a tilt table, is it worth it?

*wink wink*

Oh, here's a picture of the panda cupcake we made for the debutante. Cute right? All the effort wasn't wasted after all!