Banana Cookies

I was thinking of what to do with the 3 overly-ripe bananas, when I decided to make cookies with it. After searching for a suitable recipe online for a long time, i settled down with: Zoridream's Banana Drops recipe.

I changed the recipe a little, due to the lack of certain ingredients such as ground cinnamon, banana extract and nuts. I believed that her cookies smelt and tasted better than mine since she added ground cinnamon and banana extract.

But nonetheless, I decided to modify her recipe a little to make it healthier.

Below is the ingredients I have used:

Ingredients

1. 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2. 1/4 tsp baking soda
3. 1/4 tsp salt
4. 1/2 cup brown sugar
5. 1/2 cup butter
6. 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
7. 2 eggs
8. 4 ripe big bananas, mashed

* You can use either 3 big bananas with banana extract, or use more bananas for the natural banana smell and taste.

* I reduced the amount of brown sugar to 1/2 cup as I did not like my cookies to be too sweet. If you have a sweet tooth, you might like to stick with 7/8 cup of brown sugar.

* Do add 3/4 tsp of ground cinnamon for better taste and smell.

* If you have a nutty tooth, do feel free to add your favourite nuts (chopped) into the mix.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

2. Place some baking paper on the baking tray.

3. Sift flour, baking soda and salt into a bowl.

4. In a separate small bowl, combine 2 tbsp of brown sugar with cinnamon, set aside.

5. Beat the rest of the brown sugar with the butter, vanilla extract until the mixture is light in texture.

6. Mash the bananas and add in to the butter mixture. Slowly mix the flour into the mixture.

7. Fold in nuts.

8. Drop the dough by teaspoon onto the baking tray. (I used a modified piping bag to give the cookie a nicer appearance)

9. Sprinkle the cookies with the mixture of brown sugar and cinnamon prepared earlier.

10. Bake about 10 minutes till the cookies are lightly brown. (Mine took about 15 min.)

Viola~! And you can start munching on it once it has cooled.

A really sinful way of enjoying the cookies:

You can make dark chocolate dips for it.

1. Melt a handful of dark chocolate cooking buttons with 50ml of whipping cream over a double boiler.

2. Let it cool a little.

3. Start dipping and munching your cookies.

:)

Kimchi Pancake

I was watching Family Outing 2 when I had the craving for Kimchi Pancake.

This pancake is really easy to make and I took probably 10 minutes preparing and another 10 minutes pan-frying it.

Ingredients required:

4 tablespoons of plain flour

A pinch of salt

1 egg

30 ml of water

A small bowl of Kimchi

A handful of pork mince meat

Enoki Mushrooms

Method:

1. Beat the egg in a medium sized bowl.

2. Add plain flour, salt and water.

3. Mix them to give a batter.

4. Marinate the mince pork. (I marinated it with the Shao Hsing Rice Wine, light soy sauce and some pepper)

5. Cut the Kimchi into small pieces.

6. Add the mince meat, kimchi and enoki mushroom into the batter.

7. Heat up a pan with oil.

8. Pour the batter in and wait till one side is brown and crispy before flipping it.

9. Serve with mayonnaise or Korean chilli paste.

Tip:

Do not attempt to flip the pancake too many times.

Do wait for the first side to be brown before flipping it, if not the presentation of the pancale may not turn out nice.

Photo Credits: taken from my E-620.

Sinfully Chocolate Cake

First try on this awfully sinful chocolate cake which i am going to name it as: Sinfully Chocolate Cake.

Its not that difficult to make, but way easier if you have a electric mixer. (I'm too broke to get one!)

This recipe is adapted from: ktinka from nibbledish.

Check out her original recipe at: http://www.nibbledish.com/people/ktinka/recipes/chocolate-cake

Love her Bambi frosting decorations!

My recipe:

Ingredients for cake:

1) 3 eggs (instead of 4, cos I realised that I only had 3 left in the fridge)

2) 250g caster suger (makes mixing easier, cos i was beating it manually)

3) 250g dark chocolate buttons from Coles

4) 250g unsalted butter

5) 250g plain flour

Ingredients for decoration:

1) 90g white chocolate buttons from Coles

2) 80ml pouring (whipping) cream

3) Queen's writing icing

Steps for cake:

1) Preheat oven at 200 deg C.

2) Put caster sugar and eggs in a bowl. Beat until frothy.

3) Melt dark chocolate buttons and butter on stove using a double boiling method (aka water bath).

4) Pour chocolate/butter mix into bowl with eggs and sugar.

5) Add sieved flour and stir in. (you will get a liquid dough)

6) Coat bottom and sides of baking pan with butter (if not using baking paper)

7) Add liquid dough into pan and bake in oven at 200 deg C for 20 to 25 min. (Centre of cake should be quite similar to molten choc lava)

8) Don't cut immediately.

9) Place it in fridge for about 20 minutes before decorating

10) Meanwhile, melt white chocolate buttons with whipped cream with the double boiling method (aka water bath)

11)Cool the mixture before coating on the cake.

12) Place cake in fridge again till coating solidify.

12) Decorate with whatever other ingredients you have!

TADA~! Final product is the cake i made for my roommate's birthday!

Be sure not to put the cake in the fridge for too long for step 9, or the cake will be too hard (like mine)!

.

Oh.. New blog dedicated for FOOD.

Dear all,

After watching Julie and Julia on the plane back to Sydney, I thought that starting a food blog is indeed a good way to keep track on the food that I have tried to make.

Hence, I have decided to start a new blog about the food I made.

This blog is dedicated to people who are noobs like me.

Since I have so much passion about food and dessert, do give me suggestions on the food I made.

I would love to get any opinions on how to improve the dishes.

I would like to thank Nora Ephron (Writer of Julie & Julia), noobcook and nibbledish for giving me this inspiration.

I am definitely not going to be like Julie, trying to finish all Julia's recipes within 365 days.

I will be going at my own pace.

With love,

limjie.