A Video!

Hiya Everyone!
Yes, yes, I know I haven't posted in SO long, but the truth is, I had a bunch of recipes, all with the pictures, prepared for the blog, but I never really got around to posting them. This is mainly because I'm just feeling extremely tired and overwhelmed these days.

But, I found the time to make this short, sweet YouTube video, on a really awesome recipe I hope all of you would like to try out, because I assure you, it is amazing! Its the absolute perfect cookie, with the sweet crunchiness on the outside, and the perfect amount of chewiness on the inside, with bits of melted chocolate scattered throughout.

I hope you enjoy the video, and I hope you can forgive me, and you can understand, that I kept this a short post, because I'm still very stressed, and I just want some time to relax a little, then, hopefully, I will be back, and be able to post regularly.

But in the meantime, here is the link to the video! I'd really appreciate if you could check it out :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVtKDqFZTCY

Double Chocolate White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hiya!
Sorry it's been so long since I updated. But don't worry, I'm alive. I just got really busy, I had exams, tests, etc. I mean, I only am a 7th grader :). I recently made a batch of double chocolate white chocolate chip cookies, which I just shorten to double cookies, and they were SO SO SO good. I literally ate a whole batch... :O

These cookies are relatively easy to make, and they taste crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy in the middle, with bits of melted chocolate scattered throughout. They are the perfect  treat for any chocaholic *cough* me *cough* and they make enough to share, although I doubt you will want to :)

So without further ado, here is the recipe!

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Start by preheating your oven to 165C. Line a baking tray with baking paper, and set it aside.

Next, grab your ingredients.

You will need:

- 1 cup of all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup of cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 + 1/4 cup of sugar
- 4 ounces milk chocolate (chopped) /chocolate chips
- 4 ounces white chocolate (chopped) /chocolate chips
- 1 stick of butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 ounces separate milk chocolate

To start with, chop the 4 ounces of milk chocolate and white chocolate, and set them aside. You could also use chocolate chips or pre-cut chunks if you don't feel like chopping.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda. Then set it aside.

Then, in a bowl set over a pot of boiling water, melt the other 4 ounces of milk chocolate and butter until smooth, and set this aside as well.

In a separate large bowl, whip together the eggs and sugar, until it has increased in volume, and it is very pale.

Add the melted butter and chocolate mixture to the eggs and sugar, and fold it in gently. Then add in the dry ingredients and mix them in, until it forms a thick, fudgy batter.

Lastly, add in the chocolate chips, or chopped chocolate, depending on what you use. Fold them in.

Drop one inch rounds of batter onto the baking tray, and leave a space between each cookie, because they will spread out as they bake. Then, bake in the oven for 12 minutes or less, depending on your oven. Just be sure not to bake them any longer than 12 minutes, or they will end up hard.

When taking them out of the oven, they will look under-baked, but they will harden as they cool. And I may or may not have eaten one, as soon as they came out of the oven ;)

Then, if you have the patience unlike me, let them cool on a wire rack, until they become a little more firm.

And yes, I ate another one.

The photo above displays my attempts to make it look like I am a professional food photographer, but I failed miserably ;)
Anyhoo, enjoy! See ya net time! Mariam.

Chocolate Cake

Hiya!
Sorry for not posting last week.... I did bake cupcakes and I kinda really failed. Mainly because I didn't check the expiry date on my baking powder. So, there's an important tip for you guys, check the expiry date! Anyway... this week, some people were having a lunch party and I was asked to make the dessert. So, I accepted. And I decided to make a chocolate cake! Yum!

The great thing about this chocolate cake in particular, is it's made in only one bowl! Well, not really, for me, because I use multiple bowls to show you guys the ingredients. But, unless you do that.... it's a one bowl recipe. Which means easy clean up! And it's also really simple.

And yes, I know that so far, there's only been chocolate desserts. So you can tell I'm a chocaholic. But hopefully, next week, it'll be vanilla's turn! But enough of that, here's the recipe for the chocolate cake and the chocolate buttercream, and it's a one bowl recipe, yay!

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Start by preheating your oven to 170 C and butter then flour and 8 or 9 inch circular pan. I didn't have 9 inch so I used 8 inch. Oh, I also only had one pan, so I had to wait for the first cake to bake, to bake the second one. But if you have two, grease them both!

Next, grab your ingredients. Here are the wet and dry ingredients.

You will need:

- 1 + 3/4 cups of all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup of cocoa powder
- 1 + 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 + 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup of vegetable oil
- 1 cup of milk
- 2 tsp of vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup of coffee

If you don't like coffee or have coffee, you can easily substitute this with a cup of hot water instead. Also, the coffee will not change the flavor of the cake, it'll just enhance the flavor of the chocolate in the cake :)

First, into a large bowl, add in the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Then give it all a good whisk to combine them.

Next, add in the vegetable oil, milk, vanilla, eggs and whisk it all up. And just a heads up, this next picture might not look as appetizing....

Lastly, pour in the coffee or hot water, and mix it up. It might look like it will be too runny, but don't worry, it'll pull it self together as you whisk.

Now, pour the batter into the prepared pans, and bake it for about 30 minutes. It does help to have two pans because then you can actually see if you're dividing equally. Also, try not to overfill the pans.

Baking times, however, will vary. My cakes too about 40 minutes instead. Just keep an eye on them, don't open the oven door too much and poke in a toothpick to see if it comes out clean.

Once they're done, let them cool in the pans for around 15 minutes and then flip the cakes onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely. You can even put them in the fridge to speed up the process.

While the cake was cooling, I made some buttercream to frost it. This recipe however, was not my favorite, mainly because it was too thick and dark for my taste. But, if that's the sort of texture you prefer, then go ahead! The recipe is below.

But you can also use ANY other frosting recipe that you like! It's all up to you!

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First, grab your ingredients. Also, the reason my butter looks like that is because I forgot to take it out earlier to come to room temperature, so I used a box grater instead to grate it all up to form small shreds that came to room temperature quickly. That is a good tip.

You will need:

- 2 sticks of butter
- 2 + 1/2 cups icing sugar
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 3-4 tbsp of milk

Start by putting all your butter in a bowl (I used my stand mixer for this) and cream it until it's nice and pale.

Next add in your flour and cocoa powder. I sifted mine into the butter. Also, don't add it in all at once, and mix it in on a low speed, gradually increasing.

Then add in the milk. Depending on how smooth you want your buttercream, you can add as much or as little milk as you like.

Now, to assemble the cake....

Put it on a round cake board with a smear of frosting underneath to hold to cake in place. The weird cross hatched lines on top are because of the cooling rack. I covered it in only one layer of frosting, mainly because nobody in my family likes too much frosting and I didn't have the time to do a crumb coat (a thin coat of frosting that seals all the crumbs for the final layer to be nice and neat). But it still looked good.

Make sure you cool the cake COMPLETELY before frosting it, otherwise the butter in the frosting will melt because of the heat of the cake!

Enjoy! You deserve it. See ya net time! Mariam.

French Chocolate Macarons! :)

Hiya!
This week was a great week. Mainly because, I made macarons! As in French Macarons. I absolutely love these! They taste SO good. But the problem is, these cookies are probably THE most temperamental and frustrating cookies to make. They are super-duper finicky and the slightest little mistake could make them all go wrong. But as they say, "Practice makes perfect", and I've made these many times, sometimes failing, sometimes not, but every time, I have been getting practice.

So, if you end in tears on the first time, don't be too sad, because that's what happened to me. You WILL need practice. If you make these the first time and they are perfect, you my friend, are a miracle worker. But hopefully, in any case, they still taste good!

Below is my favorite recipe for the chocolate version of these macarons. And if you do make the brave decision (you'll need some elbow grease and courage) to bake these, I wish you good luck!

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Preheat the oven to 160C. Line a baking tray with baking paper, not wax paper.

Now, grab your ingredients.

You will need:

- 2 egg whites, at room temperature

- 1 cup powdered/icing sugar

- 1/2 cup almond flour/finely ground almonds

- 3 tbsp cocoa powder

- 5 tbsp caster sugar

First, process the cocoa powder and almond flour together in a food processor to get rid of the lumps.

Next, take a large bowl, and whip the egg whites on high till they're foamy. Once they are at the point where you can't see liquid, just foam, add the caster sugar and whip till nice and stiff and really glossy! Remember: make sure you have NO yolks in your whites, otherwise they won't whip.

Now, take a separate bowl, and sift in your icing sugar, cocoa and almond flour. Make sure you do this step because you don't want bumpy macarons.

Now for the extremely dangerous part! This is where it might all go wrong. So be VERY careful!
Take about 1/3 of your dry mix and add that to the meringue (egg white mixture). Then GENTLY fold it in. DO NOT MIX, FOLD! If you mix the meringue will deflate in about 3 mixes. So fold gently.

Add in the rest of they dry ingredients and FOLD. Go around the batter, cut through the middle and repeat. Gently. Then, when you reach a slow flowing, lava-like consistency, scoop the batter into a large piping or zip-lock bag. Oh, and if you do't know what lave looks like, just search it up ;)

Next, pipe out the batter in about 3.5 cm/1 inch circles on the baking sheet. You can also use templates or draw circles with a marker underneath the baking paper. Once you've piped them out, bang the tray on the counter around 2-3 times on each side then pop any larger air bubbles with a toothpick. Leave the shells to rest for about 15 minutes, but don't rest them for too long! They will start puffing up and cracking in the oven otherwise.

Then, bake at 160, on the middle rack, for 13-15 minutes, or until they come off the baking sheet cleanly. But, we are not done yet *groans*. It's time to make some filling for these!

I used my fave filling, chocolate ganache. I swear, I could eat this right outta the bowl (if only my mom hadn't stopped me), but you can use any filling you like. The choices are limitless! Chocolate buttercream, milk choc. ganache, Swiss buttecream, white chocolate ganache, Italian meringue etc.

Here's how you make it!

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First, grab your ingredients.

You will need:

- 4 ounces of milk chocolate
- 1/3 cup heavy cream
- 1 tsp butter

Start by heating the cream. But, don't be like me, I walked away ;)

Then, just pour it over the chocolate and the butter, leave it for a minute, then whisk. It's that easy!

I put mine in the fridge to let it set. Then, when my macarons were done, I scooped the ganache into a piping bag, piped it onto the macarons, and they were done!! Everybody loved them, including me! Oh, they were SO good, I wish I had one right now.

After the whole baking was FINALLY done, this is what I looked like.

But, it was totally worth it. My best friends enjoyed them too. I really hope you guys try this recipe out. And if it doesn't come out right the first time, just keep practicing!
See ya next time, Mariam.