Tea Shortbread Cookies and Chocolate Biscotti

Konnichiwa everyone!

I'm back from Japan, ready to bake and blog! :) Christmas was fast approaching and so 'twas cookies time!~~

You're either in the cookies team or the cake team, and I'm definitely in the cookies team. Not that I don't love cakes, but cookies are the way to go! So yup, another reason to celebrate on Christmas! (Except that I don't actually like Gingerbread Cookies, but let's not go there!)

First off, I baked some Tea Shortbread Cookies for our neighbors who never failed to give us goodies from time to time. Naturally, it was our turn to return the favour on this festive season.

Shortbread cookies are really easy and fun to make, especially when you get to play with the cookie cutters. Since it's Christmas time, I decided to go with animal shapes, Christmas trees and stars! :)

Firstly, TELL ME YOU NOTICE THE ANIMAL FARM/FOREST-THEME!! With the trees and animals and all! No? Okay... Let's move on! I decided to make two batches of different flavours, Earl Grey Tea and Sakura & Green Tea. The Earl Grey cookies had a more distinct flavour while the latter was pretty subtle, so you get the best of both worlds~ Either way, they were really crumbly, like shortbread cookies should be! (So yay!)

I also love how versatile shortbread cookies can be. You can literally choose anything to spice it up~ I decided to go with tea because I think they go well together. :) So yup, if you ever decide to make these (which I strongly encourage you to!), go ahead and find different types of teas to mix in the dough. Use about 3-4 teabags, and here's the recipe that I used just so you get a better idea. :) If you aren't sure if the amount of tea is enough, smell the dough for a distinct tea scent. (Weird but it works wonder!!) I've done this with quite a number of tea flavours and they've all turned out pretty well. :)

Anyway because I wasn't initially planning to bake these, I'll apologise for the sloppy photos and lack of things to say, but let's move on to the chocolate biscotti! :)

Let's just say not all chocolate biscotti are created equal. Especially not mine!! I guess it was a technical error that I made, but I'm still rather proud of it! By the way, is there a plural for biscotti? Because biscottis just doesn't sound right. Haha. I've been thinking about this for a while, not that it really matters. But some things just gets to you, you know? You must be wondering what's going on in my brain, haha.

Anyway, let's just move on to the fun part, making them!

Following David Lebovitz's recipe, who is someone you might have heard me mention before because he is my ~Pastry God~, I got down to business!

Mix the dry ingredients.

Mix the wet ingredients.

Mix the dry AND wet ingredients and...

TADAAAA- The dough is born! After that, roll them into two logs, which is... Where I went wrong, if I'm not wrong! Haha. After the first bake, the logs cracked like so.. :(

Tragic!!! However, I went ahead because well, not all hope is lost, and I feel that it's always better to be confident and keep the faith while baking! (The baked goods can sense your fear... Trust me.) After letting them cool for 15 minutes, it was time to cut the biscottis. Needless to say, the cracks spelled trouble.

That is, in fact, a ruler you see. I'm all about precision sometimes.

This was the amount of crumbs I had left thanks to the cracks! I'm still unsure of what to do with them, but just a tip, make sure to use a serrated bread knife to cut them (which I did not have and proceeded to use a really lame knife) and also, don't ignore the instructions to press the logs gently! It definitely pays to be gentle~

Anyway, I'm not fond of taking pictures during the process (because I'm horrible at multi-tasking), so after the 2nd bake, we have biscotti!

Perfect when dipped in coffee! It's like oreo all grown up. :')

Biscotti are definitely not soft and chewy. Quite the opposite, actually. Which is why they are also called coffee biscuits! They'll soften in coffee and become so veryyyy delicious~

Also, one thing about biscotti is that it doesn't have any butter, and the only fat is from the three eggs. So if you're the health conscious type but still love a good snack, biscotti can be your best friend! Let's just ignore the sugar part though... But as Nicolette once told me, when making desserts, just go all out!

Before I end off, I do need to remind you that if you were to attempt this recipe, use good quality Cocoa Powder, as it'll make a world of difference. If you're wondering where to get it, do leave a message on this blog and I'll let you know! :) I promise it's rather inexpensive, cheaper than cocoa powder in supermarkets, in fact.

So yup, I'll leave you with this crunchy and chocolatey treat! Hope you'll give it a try and thank you for reading! :) Stay tuned for more on Tarts and Stuff!

Sayonara!~

Nat

Bacon, Mushroom and Spinach Quiche

Hi there!!
We are back with another post! (Well, just one of us because Nat's having fun in Japan) (sushi!!)
Anyway, I know I said I would bake something with lemon in it the last time, but I'm saving that for later on, so I decided to bake a savoury tart this time aka a quiche!
In case you don't know what a quiche is, lemme attempt to explain haha basically it's a pastry tart with a creamy, cheesy filling and it usually has ingredients like bacon and various types of vegetables. Personally I'd prefer a quiche over other savoury pies/tarts like Shepard's pie any day.
So here's the recipe and this is my first time trying a Gordon Ramsay recipe haha so exciting right Gordon Ramsay. His recipe is actually for a rocket, mushroom and bacon quiche but I decided to replace spinach with rocket just for fun. And maybe because I'm not the biggest rocket fan around. Yeah, that's not the only thing I changed....
1. I didn't add thyme to the pastry or tarragon to the custard or red onion and chicory to the filling.
2. I also replaced the 100g of Gruyere cheese and 100g of cheddar cheese with 200g of Swiss cheese instead.
And I still think it tasted great! But yeah feel free to customise the ingredients to suit your tastebuds :)

 This is the pastry, glazed and ready for a second bake. It also had to be chilled before baking it the first time. So yeah, it requires quite a bit of work but IT WILL BE WORTH IT. Special thanks to my cousin who came back from Australia for a visit for helping me with this. Yay! We seriously thought we had screwed up the dough but it still worked out fine (thanks to my mom heh)

 I had fun cooking the spinach, mushroom and bacon haha and the filling already looks good before baking please.

It tasted really good :) not too hard/starchy, quite light actually. Texture's good. SO TRY IT. I'm quite sure I'm going to make this again, and that means something okay. To quote my mom: "Everything tastes good with bacon."

 Before I end, my brother's panna cotta makes a cameo! Panna cotta is an Italian dessert in case you haven't heard of it. It's sort of like a pudding, more more creamy and liquid-y I guess. If you're interested in making it, just search it up on Allrecipes.
Alright that's all for now, can't wait for Nat to get back! Hope you enjoyed this! :) I need to take better photographs.

Nic

Apple & Cheese Soufflés

Hi! Yep, I am back from Bangkok and managed to whip something up specially for you guys :)
I know some of you are like, "apple and cheese go together???" but hey, no harm trying right!
On a serious note, I had my reservations about posting this up because honestly this dish did not really go as well as I would have liked it to be, but as Nat said, this is a 'learning experience' because c'mon, baking isn't going to be a smooth-sailing ride where every recipe you try out turns out great. So I'm just going to put it out there - this was my first attempt at baking a soufflé, and while I'm glad it actually rose (more on that later), the taste just didn't hit the mark for me haha maybe it was the type of cheese I used or maybe cheese soufflés are just not my thing! But it could be yours!
This can function as an appetizer or a warm (albeit savoury) dessert :) the recipe can be found here!

The recipe stated to use this specific brand of sharp cheddar which sounds pretty "up there" but me being me, I just grabbed a relatively inexpensive block of sharp cheddar off the shelves at Fairprice hahaha. The cheese in the given recipe was white while mine was orange, so yeah I guess you should experiment with the different types of cheeses to see which one floats your boat :) As for the apples, I used Granny Smiths because they seem to be the favourites when it comes to apple-related desserts no?

This recipe involved a lot of cooking-on-the-stove, so yeah everything was going fine up to the caramelization of apples, then I had to prep the so-called base of the batter and I think I became quite frantic because I was like trying to manage the stove and watch the video recipe at the same time so yeah hahaha might have made a couple of mistakes then....
Then it came to the meringue, which is basically whipping the egg whites to soft peaks. That means when you make peaks in your meringue with your whisk, the peaks are supposed to fall. I think I might have overwhipped mine a little because it was like borderline stiff peaks but I still folded them in anyway and hoped for the best!

 As usual, the 'Before'....

 .....and the 'After'! (excuse the not-so-presentable ramekin) They deflate pretty quickly after taking them out

IT ACTUALLY ROSE, so yes it definitely looks like a soufflé, but not happy with the taste. And mine doesn't look like the one in the recipe either............whoops. Maybe it's the seasoning or the cheese, but anyway I'm still glad I gave it a go. If savoury desserts aren't your thing, go ahead and try a classic chocolate soufflé. I think it's much more....standard? Because it's easier to know if yours is cooked properly or not. And if you avidly watch Masterchef, chocolate soufflés are like in every season c/o Gordon Ramsay. This type of soufflé is less conventional so I wasn't sure whether mine was done right or not haha because I haven't tried one before.
Experimentation is pretty interesting, but I think I'm going to go back to my lemon roots next hahaha if you know me, you know that I'm a sucker for lemon desserts. So till next time and thanks so much for reading!!
Feel free to tell us what you want us to make for you! x

Nic

Lemon-Scented Pull Apart Bread

Welcome to the third post of Tarts and Stuff, posted by Nat because Nic is busy shopping in Bangkok~ It's only been 5 days since we posted, but it feels like ages ago! Just wanted to thank everyone once again for the tremendous support and encouragement we have received so far. It's definitely really heartwarming and you have no idea how much Nic and I spazzed over these few days. Haha.

Anyway, back to business cause it's all about bread today. :)

Firstly, I have to apologise for the bad pictures because baking this took AGES and I was dead tired from standing in the kitchen all day, 5 hours to be exact. Also, I had to juggle with baking this and making dinner, and that was no easy task! This recipe was a success though, despite the numerous hiccups along the way, like having to add more flour than called for, having fat doughy fingers, and let's not forget; having my kitchen look as if it was hit by a tornado. (The clean up was the WORST and I wanted to take a picture of the mess I made, but that would be kinda embarrassing.)

There is, however, one unsolvable problem that remains with baking bread, and it's that fresh bread goes stale INSANELY fast. Literally within a day. BUT, good news is, when I ate it today, I realised the flavors seemed to be more pronounced than on the first day! So yeah... Soft bread or tastier bread. You can only choose one because life's like that. *Rolls eyes* Also, it suddenly hit me that this bread might be ideal for making french toast when it's stale. Not proven though, so I really don't know. Haha.

I think my favourite part of the bread was the exterior because it remained nice and crusty. Plus, I really liked the cream cheese glaze! In an attempt to be more descriptive, I'd say it added a nice contrast of flavors compared to the bread itself which was slightly less sweet! Also, I must admit that that was very awkward to write, but A for awkward effort? 

And we are coming to the end of the post! (Say nooooo) Fun fact: If you noticed, the previous pictures have a sugary topping unlike the first one. If you're wondering why, it's because I decided that it made the bread look more ~photogenic~, and also provided a nice crunch! :D

SO YEAH, do give this recipe a try because it was insanely fun to make, albeit pretty tedious and messy. Still, if you like playing with dough and don't mind being covered with flour, I'd say give it a try! It's worth it. :)

Here's the link to the recipe! And if anyone wants to know, I added about 6 tablespoons more flour than called for, because Singapore is just that humid and it interfered with the dough. :( Oh and, I recommend reading the full recipe and the comments before proceeding! It'd help a lot. :)

Have fun and thanks for reading!

See you soon!

Nat

P.S. I know this post is a tad disorganised, but I'm learning! Hope it's still understandable and I promise I'll get better soon!

Japanese Sweet Potato Pie/Tart

How exciting to be posting for the FIRST time ever on Tarts And Stuff :D Nicolette and I have been talking about creating a food blog for months and we've finally done it! A lot of effort was put into it so I hope you guys will support us~

Speaking of first times, I've never baked a Sweet Potato Pie until now! In fact, the first Sweet Potato Pie I'm tasting is the first Sweet Potato Pie I'm baking. Thanks to beginner's luck, the pie turned out pretty good! :) Though there were some mishaps along the way, but I guess that's hard to avoid. Haha. *Self consolation*

Now on to the pie/tart itself! I don't know how a Sweet Potato Pie is supposed to taste like, but I'd say this tastes good to me! :) The crust added a nice crunch to the custard filling which was really creamy and all sweet-potato-like (no other way I can say this). I'd still like to try the authentic version some day though!

However, the next time I make this, I'll definitely use another pie crust recipe (though you can still give this crust a try, it's quite good). Although it was sweet, buttery, crumbly and really easy, it stuck to the foil when I was blind baking! So I guess it turned out not so much rustic, but ugly. Haha. Also, I highly suggest using a pie plate cause mine is a tart pan, so the end result was more of a tart and less of a pie, which explains why I'm using these 2 words interchangeably here. (The baking world is so confusing sometimes, I hardly ever get it.)

Trying to act all professional here! I hear you scoffing but hey, all I have for a camera is the iPhone 4. :( I tried!! I must say the sweet potatoes look better than the tart itself but... It just doesn't taste as good, no no. ;D (Brown is beautiful right?)

Nutmeg makes anything better. (Although I was lazy to grate any on the pie here) I liked this shot the best! Still much room for improvement, though! But hopefully Nic and I will learn more along the way and get better with every post.

Now on to the recipe, courtesy of Leite's Culinaria (aka my favourite website ever) ~

Japanese Sweet Potato Pie (Adapted from Cheryl Day and Griffith Day)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds (680g) Japanese Sweet Potatoes
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinammon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 recipe Shortcut Pie Crust (made with brown sugar and prebaked in a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate)
• Whipped cream (optional)
• Freshly grated nutmeg (optional)

Directions:

1. Steam the sweet potatoes until fork tender, about 35-45 minutes.
2. Using a food processor*, combine the cream, eggs and molasses with the sweet potatoes puree until smooth.
3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, spices and salt. Add the sweet potato mixture and stir until smooth.
4. Pour the filling into a pre-baked pie crust and bake the pie for 60-70* minutes, until the filling is firm around the edges but still jiggles slightly in the center when you gently shake the pie plate.The filling will continue to firm up as it cools. You may need to loosely cover the pie with foil after 50 minutes to prevent it from overbrowning. Let the pie cool completely before slicing and serving. 
5. The pie is best served the same day, but can be covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 3 days. If desired, heap the whipped cream on top and sprinkle with nutmeg. 

*If you do not have a food processor (which I used because I was lazy), please check out the instructions on the original post!

That's it for now! I hope you've enjoyed reading our posts and please look forward to more! We would also appreciate comments and constructive criticisms from everyone! :) Haha yeah, and if you're cool (you know you are), please say hi too! Just to let us know that people are reading (hopefully) ~~

See you again soon!

Nat

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hiya!! You have no idea how excited I am typing this first post ever.
So I've decided to kick things off with something really classic, something practically everyone loves to eat - good old chocolate chip cookies. (and because a few people asked me to make some for them)
It's a pretty straightforward recipe but I guess it comes down to finding that one recipe that floats your boat. Personally, I'd take crunchy cookies over soft ones any day. These ones are pretty much crispy, but the inside is still moist and it has those gooey chocolate chips everyone loves, so here goes!!
Oh yes, click here for the recipe, aptly named 'Best Chocolate Chip Cookies'.
Basically you'd need flour, sugar (white & brown), butter (softened), baking soda, bit of water, vanilla extract, salt, eggs and chocolate chips! Of course you can add nuts and dried fruits if you'd like.
I think it's quite appalling that I still do not own an electric mixer so when I had to cream the white sugar, brown sugar and butter together, it was BY HAND. It was physically straining :(

 Hershey's semi-sweet chocolate chips /oh the joy/

 Before..... (this is where ice-cream scoops come in handy)

 ....and after! The recipe said 10 minutes at 175 degrees Celsius, but it really depends on your oven so just bake them till they're brown enough. My times varied between 10 to 15 minutes, 12 on average.

 That top cookie's smiling at you :-)

Absolutely delicious hehe so yup please go ahead and try it!! It's very simple!
Since this is only the first post, we're still getting used to the layout of the posts and all, so please tell us how you'd like us to format our posts, like what details we should include or leave out :-) and feel free to ask us any questions! This is only the beginning my friends. See ya!

Nic x