Almond Apple Crumble

Golden Delicious are my new favorite baking apples. They are not as tart as Granny Smith so I don't have to use as much sugar. And they bake up soft and fast without too much liquid.

I ran out of oatmeal and couldn't make my usual crisp with oatmeal and nuts. So I came up with this and have already baked it 3 more times within 2 weeks. I love eating the stuff. I heard somewhere that apples are good for you and almonds are some kind of a super food. I hope that's true. Plus this is flour-free, butter-free and with minimal added sugar!

Ingredients

• 5 apples - peeled, cored and sliced


• Juice from half a lemon


• 1 cup almond flour


• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 2 tablespoons packed brown sugar


• 2 tablespoons almond butter


• 1/4 cup soy milk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.


2. Toss sliced apples with lemon juice and pile onto an 8x8 inch baking dish.


3. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together. Rub in almond butter by hands until the mixture is crumbly (it looks like dirt at this point.)


4. Sprinkle soy milk over the dough and mix until you get a wet but not soggy dough. Crumble on top of the apples.


5. Bake for 40 minutes.

Salted Lemon Lime Shortbread Cookies

I don't know why I didn't post this recipe before. (Update: It's because these cookies are basically the same as these.) A lot of people came to this site for these mini lemon tarts which used lemon-lime shortbread cookie dough for crust. I was asked a couple of times for the recipe and each time I would just write back with full recipe from my head (I made them so many times I have the recipe memorized both by volume and by weight.)

These cookies are just a tiny bit sweet with a little tang from lemon/lime juice and refreshing citrus scent from both lemon and lime zest. It's also have a kick from extra salt sprinkled on top to balance out all the flavors. They are possibly the most perfect cookies ever. Salt part came as a happy accident. I forgot to add salt in the dough one time so just sprinkled it on top of the cut cookies. It turned out way better than the original. Somehow, the salt brought out more of the citrus and buttery goodness in them.



Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 1/8 teaspoon salt


• 2 sticks chilled butter


• Zest from 1 lemon and 2 limes


• Juice from the lemon and limes (not more than 1 tablespoon)


• Extra sea salt for sprinkle and extra flour for rolling out the cookies

Directions

1. With a food processor, pulse flour, sugar and salt together.


2. Cut butter into cubes and add to the mixture. Add zest and juice. Pulse until butter is cut into the dough and the mixture is crumbly.


3. Gather into 2 balls. Flatten and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or more until the dough is hard enough to roll out and cut without sticking. I usually do this the night before.


4. If rolling and cutting out cookies seems like too much work, just roll the dough into logs about 1 inch in diameter. Wrap and refrigerate.


5. Adjust oven racks to the upper third and lower third. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.


6. Roll out the dough to about 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick and cut out with cookie cutter. Or if using the log method, use a sharp knife to cut the dough out into 1/4 inch thick. Arrange in prepared cookie sheets. These cookies don't expand much so just give them maybe 1/2 inch space between each other.


7. Sprinkle with extra sea salt.


8. Bake for 25 minutes or until the edges start to brown. Rotate and switch sheet position half way through.


9. Let cool in the baking sheets for a minute then transfer to cooling racks. Let cool completely before storing or serving. The cookies develop more flavor and better texture when they are cold. They stay for about 1 to 2 weeks in cookie jars (not air-tight) but I assure you they definitely won't last that long.

Note: If you want light color and good looking cookies with smooth surface and perfect cut-out shape, bake longer in lower temperature (say 300 degrees for 30 minutes.) But if you don't care about how they look, you just want to eat them, bake them at 350 for 15 to 18 minutes. 325 degrees is the middle ground. You get reasonably good looking cookies in reasonably short baking time. I personally like crisp and dry cookies fast and prefer the higher temperature.

Grapefruit Souffle

Ha ha! Success! Well, sort of. Look at how beautifully my souffle rose....

But then about half a minute later, it sank.



I finally went out and bought two 6-oz ramekins made especially for souffle. I almost followed Martha Stewart's Grapefruit Souffle with Ginger except that I didn't have ginger and I didn't want 6 portions of souffle (which must be eaten immediately.) So I tried to third the recipe and ended up with 1 grapefruit, 3 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon corn starch, 1 teaspoon flour, 1 egg yolk and 2 egg whites with some salt and cream of tartar.

What could it be? Was it because I didn't beat egg whites long enough? I whipped it to soft peak. Maybe I need a stiffer peak. Or was it because I didn't have enough egg white to hold all the filling?



Anyway, I will try again with Mark Bittman's chocolate souffle next weekend.

At least, this time I got a much better result than last week. At this rate, I'll be souffle god whose souffle has a staying power for more than one minute by Christmas!

100% Whole Wheat Bread

I'm loving this. Usually when I bake bread at home, I get full-sized loaf which either goes stale within a couple of days or disappears into my belly too fast. The idea, from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, is that I make a lot of bread dough, keep in the refrigerator and bake a small portion a day. This way I have well-portioned fresh bread every day. As a bonus, the bread dough develops more flavor the longer it stays in the refrigerator. (The book said not to keep for more than 5 days.)

This is the 4th loaf a got from the batch - baked in a preheated dutch oven, NYTimes no-knead bread style. The loaves are not as airy as oat bran bread which was made from all-purpose flour. This one has beautiful crust and nutty and a bit sour flavor. My first loaf which was baked about 10 hours after I mixed the dough came out a bit bitter. But the bitterness was gone in the second loaf baked the next day.



Here's the recipe which I adjusted a little bit from the book. Why the adjustment? I think that bread is not as delicate as what people said especially those that get to ferment for many many hours. As long as the ratio of flour per liquid is about right and salt + yeast are added, there will be bread. Measuring flour by weight instead of by volume is just convenient for me. I rounded yeast and salt to a tablespoon because I couldn't find my other measuring spoons. So there.

Ingredients

• 800 grams whole wheat flour


• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water


• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm soy milk


• 1/4 cup light tasting olive oil


• 1/2 cup Agave nectar


• 1 tablespoon salt


• 1 tablespoon instant yeast

Directions

1. Mix flour, salt and yeast in a large bowl. Mix all the other ingredients into the bowl with a wooden spoon. When all the flour is nicely combined and wet, cover with a towel and let rise for a few hours until the dough falls. (I mixed the dough at night and just leave it overnight.)


2. To bake, with wet hands take a grapefruit-size ball and shape into round by gathering its surface at the bottom and let rise on floured surface covered with a towel or plastic wrap until it's about one and a half size the original ball. (I lined a bowl with parchment paper. Rise my dough on it. And later just placed the paper with the dough on top into preheated dutch oven.) When the dough is at room temperature, it took me about one hour. But with refrigerated dough, I let it sit (covered) in a cool oven for about 2 hours to get to room temperature. Then shape and let rise for about 1 more hour.


3. Preheat the oven to 450 minutes with a dutch oven and its cover inside for about 30 minutes.


4. Flour the surface of the dough, slash (or not - I forgot with this loaf and I kind of like the way the loaf exploded.) Dump the dough onto the piping hot dutch oven, cover and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the cover and bake for 10 more minutes or until the bread browns.


5. Let cool on a cooling rack for at least one hour before cutting.

Apple Souffle

My first souffle. Collapsed. Failed.

Just out of the oven, started to sink.


Didn't have souffle baking dish. Used assortment of bowls instead (one of the reasons for my downfall.) The jam har did the worst. The thing exploded and spilled over in the oven.

I'm not giving up. At least I learned that souffle is pretty easy to prepare once I have everything ready at room temperature. I'll be back. Next time I'll have a proper souffle dish and will follow the recipe.

Spiced Apple and Plum Crumble

I don't really know what the difference between crisps and crumbles are. Google turned up confusing answers. So I'm calling this one crumble because I already have a bunch of crisps on the site and I didn't use nuts in this recipe (because I was out.)

I made this crumble intentionally minimally sweetened. The crumble came out a little tart from Granny Smiths which was perfect for me. I resolved to eat more fruit and vegetable. This will be my breakfast and snack for the week. Red plums gave the dish pretty red hue.

Ingredients

• 6 red plums, pitted and sliced each into 16 pieces with peels on


• 5 Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and sliced each into 16 pieces


• Juice from one lemon


• 1/4 cup brown sugar


• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon


• 1 teaspoon ground ginger


• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg


• 2 cups old-fashion oats


• 1 cup almond flour


• 1/4 cup cold butter - cut into small cubes

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.


2. Toss plums and apples with lemon juice, sugar, and spices. Transfer to 9x13 inch baking dish.


3. In a separate bowl, rub oats and almond flour with butter by hand. Sprinkle over the fruit. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes until the top is brown and fruit is soft.


4. Let cool before serving.

For a normal sweet and buttery crisp, use 1/2 cup of sugar in the fruit, 1/4 cup of sugar, 1 stick of butter and 1/2 cup of chopped nuts in the topping.

Cranberry and Vanilla Bean Sorbet

If you are looking for ideas for those fresh cranberries available all over right now, definitely try this cranberry sorbet. Vanilla bean surprisingly rounded out the tartness of cranberries - making the sorbet perfectly sweet, tart and smooth.

I pureed the cooked cranberries in a food processor and didn't strain the mixture despite the recipe. The sorbet was most delicious and refreshing especially after a heavy meal.

Delicious Food of Japan

Eating was more than half of my trip to Japan. Everything was so delicious we (my brother, my cousins and I) practically did not stop eating until we left each other for our flights home.

My brother took a bunch of pictures of some of the food we ate.

My favourite? Other than all the fresh seafood, the glutenous rice dough filled with sweet red bean paste. They came in all shapes an forms. Sometimes the red bean was inside, sometimes outside. Most of the time they are round, but they can also be cube, or even fish!

Tomato Quick Bread

This is way up in my list of what not to bake.

The idea was exciting, at first. People make all kinds of zucchini baked goods. I successfully made eggplant muffins. So why not tomato bread?

The execution was simple, I replaced zucchini in this excellent zucchini bread recipe with chopped tomatoes.



The bread looked beautiful and tasted weird. Tomato seeds and gooey chunks of tomatoes in a slice of quick bread are not very appetizing.

To improve it, one might need to chop the tomatoes more or peel them. I simply won't mix fresh tomatoes with baked goods ever again.

Not in my kitchen...

... in Japan.