Happy Trick or Treat!!

Hello!

Happy Halloween to all! I hope you had a wonderful time trick or treating with your loves ones! I decided to write again in this blog. It has only been one year! LOL
I always feel like the need to write again for the sake of our journal especially for our son. I dedicate this blog to my only son who is soon going to be 8 years old.

Ok, now talking about Halloween, we hardly do big things and special. But this year I decide to do some makeup on his face like scary zombie. Not quite match with his costume, the idea is ‘young zombie Anakin Skywalker killed Dart Vader’ bummer…. That sounds to pushy and unreal as Anakin is Dart Vader LOL. But anyway he got the custom he likes and I like to do my part doing makeup and photo shoot on him. So here it is:

Our breakfast was very simple too, ‘Bananas Chocolate Chip muffins anything with chocolate in it makes the whole family happy!!

Bananas Chocolate Chips Muffin:

Got the recipe from Food Network

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup dark brown sugar 

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 cups smashed bananas (about 4 to 6 bananas)

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup milk

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/8 teaspoon fine salt

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

3/4 cups chopped walnuts

1 cup of chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degree F. Lightly brush a 12 muffin tin whit butter and set aside. 

Whisk the flour, baking soda, brown sugar, and cinnamon together in a medium bowl; set aside

Which the banana, oil, milk, eggs, salt, and vanilla in a large measuring cup with a spout or another bowl.

Make a small well in the center of the dry ingredients. Pour wet ingredients into the center, then stir with a wooden spoon until the dry ingredients are moistened but still lumpy. Do not over mix the batter or your muffins will come out dense. Gently stir in the nuts. Divide the batter evenly into the muffin tin. 

Put the muffins into the oven and immediately reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees F. Bake until golden brown, about 25 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the cooking. (Insert a toothpick into the center of a muffin to check if it is done. Toothpick should come out clean). Cool muffins in the pan on a rack for a couple minutes. Turn the muffins out of the pan and cool on the rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. 

Fruit and Nut Panettone { for bread machine recipe }

Original recipe is adopted from ‘Bread Machine Cookbook’ by Better Homes and Garden.

When it comes to making bread, often I doubt myself with the thought of will the bread will rise or will the bread be fluffy when it comes out of the oven. With that in mind I hardly make bread. Not to mention that making bread takes more patents and I don’t feel I have time to use , waiting until it rises and then baking. You know, I have plenty of time inside the house during the winter. But just to spend all day in the kitchen in this fine summer weather, would really test my patients. I would rather be outside playing with my son and shooting.

One of my dear friends just gave me a bread machine. Walla! That is a great solution for me. So I made this bread for the first time, real bread I meant. Using bread machine is very easy! I think the machine does the job by itself.  I think my 5 year old boy could do the job LOL.

Festive Fruit and Nut Panettone.

For 2 pounds bread.

Ingredients:

1 cup milk

2 eggs

½ cup butter (no substitutes), cut up

3 ¾ bread flour

½ cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon finely shredded lemon peel

½ teaspoon salt

4 ½ teaspoons active dry yeast (2 packages)

1 cup dried tart, cherries (I mixed with papaya dried fruits)

¾ pine nuts

Garnish:

½ cup golden raisins (I don’t use raisins but chocolate sprinkle instead)

1 slightly beaten egg

1 tablespoon water

1 tablespoon pine nuts

Sifted powdered sugar (optional)

How to:

Add the first 11 ingredients to the machine according to the manufacturer’s directions. Select the dough cycle.

Meanwhile, coat an 8x3-inch spring form pan or soufflé dish with cooking spray. For collar, cut a piece of clean brown wrapping paper into a 25x6-inch strip. Fit the collar around the inside of prepared pan, overlapping slightly. Coat the inside of collar with cooking spray. Set aside.

When cycle is complete, remove dough. Punch down. On a lightly floured surface, gently knead in raisins. Shape dough into a ball. Place in collared pan and flatten slightly to cover bottom of pan. Cover; let rise in a warm place for 45 to 60 minutes or until nearly double.

Stir together the 1 egg the water; brush over top of loaf. Sprinkle with the 1 tablespoon pine nuts. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 55 to 60 minutes or until a wooden skewer inserted into center of bread comes out clean. If necessary, loosely cover with foil the last 10 to 15 minutes to prevent overbrowning.

Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan; cool completely. If desired, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Chocolate bread.

I haven’t been blogging about food for 2 years maybe now. As you probably know I used to blog about food HERE. I wish I have more time doing things that I like to do, but besides the others things need to be done I am trying to manage to go back to blogging but this time with my new blog it is going to be a little different. I’ll blog about food, art and craft, travel, photography and life.

So why don’t I start to talk about food first…

For some people that know me, I have been known as a chocolate lover. Even to eat a slice of bread I do put chocolate on it.

This recipe is adapted from DAPUR BUNDA the owner of this blog is in heaven right now.

Chocolate Bread:

Ingredients:

500 gr bread flour

125 gr granulated sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon bread improver ( I don’t use it, as it is hard to find here in US)

1 egg

125 ml milk

125 ml warm water

2 yeast (@11 gr)

80 gr salted butter

Filling:

Chocolate chips

Garnish:

Mix egg yolk with honey.

Direction:

Mix together flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. Next add egg, butter, warm water + yeast and milk. Really blend them together with mixer. I used kitchen aid mixer with bread hook.  After all blend together nicely, put them aside for about 30 minutes to one hour or until the dough raises.

After the dough has risen, take one piece of dough about 30-40gr, then fill with chocolate chip or any filling you may like and shape them into around ball.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Brush each bun with mix of egg yolk and honey before put them in the oven. Bake for about 15 minutes.

It was just such a fine day, bright and sunny. Perfect day to make bread! The only things that didn’t look good were grass and weed. They were growing pretty fast. I thought before my hubby mow the lawn I shall take picture of weed that grow in our back yard. Happy Summer!