Martha Stewart's Brownies

Brownie is one of the well loved desserts. For me, this chocolate bar is an instant picker upper. On days when I just have the blues, a bite of this chocolate concoction gives me comfort like a tight hug from someone I love. Among the many variations of brownies, my favorite is the fudgy kind. I like it rich and chewy - the one that sticks on your teeth kind.

In search of the perfect brownies, I will try different well acclaimed recipes and rate each one. I am no btownie expert nor an experienced dessert chef. All ratings are based on my pereonal taste and preference.

To be fair, the chocolate that would be used will be constant. In this case, it will be Beryl's Gourmet Milk Chocolate Compound. A friend gave me a 1 kilogram bar of this chocolate and it was a great timing for this brownie battle. Since milk chocolate has more sugar content compared to semisweet chocolate, I have opted to reduce the sugar by 1/2 cup. This will also be constant in all recipe trials.

For my first attempt, I tried Martha Stewart's Brownies. The use of both semisweet chocolate and cocoa powder sparked my interest to immediately try this one. Surely, it did not disappoint.

Ingredients

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for pan
6 ounces coarsely chopped good-quality semisweet chocolate
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a buttered 8-inch square baking pan with foil or parchment paper, allowing 2 inches to hang over sides. Butter lining (excluding overhang); set pan aside.

2. Put butter, chocolate, and cocoa in a heatproof medium bowl set over a pan of simmering water; stir until butter and chocolate are melted. Let cool slightly.

3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl; set aside.

4. Put sugar, eggs, and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, and beat on medium speed until pale, about 4 minutes. Add chocolate mixture; beat until combined. Add flour mixture; beat, scraping down sides of bowl, until well incorporated.

5. Pour batter into prepared pan; smooth top with a rubber spatula. Bake until a cake tester inserted into brownies (avoid center and edges) comes out with a few crumbs but is not wet, about 35 minutes. Let cool slightly in pan, about 15 minutes. Lift out brownies; let cool completely on a wire rack before cutting into squares.

Brownies are so easy to make and so forgiving (not in calories, mind you). My two-year old was "helping out" in making these brownies. Getting caught up with a toddler as the assistant, I forgotten to beat the sugar, eggs and vanilla and instead just poured it with the flour mixture. Despite this mistake, the brownie turned out great! Well loved by my family.

Difficulty: 4 / 5
Taste and Texture: 5 / 5
Appearance: 4 / 5
Rating: 13 / 15

This recipe produced a fudgy brownie that is not so sweet and does not lack the chocolate flavor. Best eaten in room temperature.

Seafood Tomato Soup

We had a family gathering last week and a cousin brought a potful of seafood tomato soup that was consumed the moment it was served. I myself had two cupfuls of this hearty concoction. And who wouldn't?! It was no doubt, one of the most hearty and comforting soup I've ever tasted in my life.

My cousin shared that in a trip to Manila, he and his wife tasted Cibo's Tomato Soup, which his wife loved. Upon returning home, he experimented and tried to replicate the soup and came out with this winner! They shared the recipe and I immediately gave it a try as my darleng fell in love with the soup too.

Seafood Tomato Soup

2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 ripe fresh tomatoes, chopped
1/4 kilo fresh shrimp, shelled
1 can crushed tomato
1 can tomato soup
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1 tsp dried basil
salt and pepper

1. Saute onion and garlic in butter and olive oil. Add tomatoes. When cooked, add shrimp.

2. When shrimp turns orange, add crushed tomatoes. Mix.

3. Pour in tomato soup. Fill the can of tomato soup with water and add into the mixture. Season with dried basil, salt and pepper. Let simmer for 10 mins.

4. Add milk. Serve hot.

Initially I didn't use chopped fresh tomatoes and used canned diced tomatoes. It came out good but in the next attempt, I would follow the recipe above as I think it will come out more flavorful. This recipe would serve 4 to 6 persons.

Comfort Food: Ground Pork with Pickled Cucumber

The past week has been trying times for me. We have been blessed with our second child and our precious one fought a bout of infection with multiple rounds of injectible antibiotics that left us in the hospital for the past two weeks. While admitted in the hospital, I found out about the deaths of a family friend; the father of a very close friend; and our longtime family driver, who has been in every milestone of my life since I was a child.

It was an emotional rollercoaster: celebrating the birth of your child at the same time trying to be strong for your battling newborn and mourning for the people you've lost.

The hospital served gourmet food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, like fish kebab with garden salad, hoisin chicken with green vegetables, skewered meat and mixed vegetables with peanut sauce, and the like. Presented nicely, at first I found it fancy but after several days of eating it, I no longer look forward when the dietary personnel enters our room. It has lost its luster and appeal and lacks... warmth.

God is good and hears our prayers, after 2 weeks we finally went home with our precious one and the acceptance of our loss.

On the day we got back, my darleng who was with me all throughout the ordeal, asked me to cook something very specific for dinner: ground pork with pickled cucumber and congee - our ultimate comfort food. When we get sick or get stuck at home on a rainy night or after eating out for consecutive nights or coming home from a vacation abroad, this is our go-to food combination. (This can also be paired with plain rice.) The warmth of the rice congee is in synced with the saltiness of the pork and the crunchiness of the cucumbers that brings just that - comfort to our tummies. It verifies something so universal, it's good to be home.

Ground Pork with Pickled Cucumber

4 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 kilo ground pork
1 tbsp knorr seasoning
2 tbsp soy sauce
ground pepper
1/2 cup pickled cucumber, cubed
water

1. Saute garlic and onion in oil. Add ground pork. Season with seasoning, soy sauce and pepper.
2. When pork is cooked, add enough water just to cover meat. Let it simmer in low fire.
3. Add seasoning or soy sauce if necessary. Then add pickled cucumber. And mix. Serve with congee or plain rice.

Birthday Custard Sponge by Nigella Lawson

I made Peach Cream Pie last year that required instant vanilla mix pudding. However, I was unable to find it in our local supermarket, I substituted it with custard powder. The cream and peach filling came out delicious, however the crust (where the vanilla mix pudding was required) didn't come out as soft as I imagined it to be. I'll try to post a more successful trial in the coming months.

Meanwhile, I was left with a tin of custard powder. Not wanting it to go to waste, I search the internet for recipes that would require custard powder. One recipe that picked my curiousity was Nigella Lawson's Birthday Custard Sponge. It was timely as my Mama's birthday was coming up. So i decided to give it a try.

The sponge came out dense. The buttercream filling for me lacked flavor. Despite having the ingredients sifted and mixing the buttercream well, it had the unmelted confectioner's sugar feel to it. Please share tips to solve this problem. I used unsweetened chocolate for the icing, which perfectly offsetted the sweetness of the dense cake. My family commented it was a "different" cake from what we are used to. As they said, "good but different. "

Ingredients

For the sponge
1.5 cups or 200 gram(s) plain flour
3 tablespoon(s) custard powder
2 teaspoon(s) baking powder
½ teaspoon(s) bicarbonate of soda
4 medium egg(s)
1 cup or 225 gram(s) butter (soft)
1 cup or 200 gram(s) caster sugar
2.5 tablespoon(s) milk

For the buttercream filling
1 cup or 125 gram(s) icing sugar
4 teaspoon(s) custard powder
2/3 cup or 75 gram(s) unsalted butter (soft)
1.5 teaspoon(s) boiling water (from recently boiled kettle)

For the chocolate icing
60 ml water
2 tablespoon(s) golden syrup
2/3 cup or 125 gram(s) caster sugar (or use 50g if using milk chocolate)
175 gram(s) dark chocolate
1 packet(s) hundreds and thousands

1. FOR THE SPONGE: Make sure everything you need is at room temperature before you start. Preheat the oven to gas mark 180°C, and butter and line two 20cm (8-inch) round pans.
2. Put all of the above ingredients except the milk, into a food processor. Process to a smooth batter, and then add the milk a tablespoon at a time to make a soft dropping consistency.
3. Divide between the two cake tins and bake for 20 minutes. The cakes will have risen and feel spookily puffy; this is because of the cornflour in the custard powder.
4. Let the tins sit on a cooling rack for 5 minutes and then turn them out on to the rack, peeling away the paper.
5. FOR THE BUTTERCREAM ICING: Process the icing sugar and custard powder to get rid of any lumps (I even sifted them together), and then add the butter, processing again to make the buttercream come together. Feed the boiling water down the funnel with the motor running to make the filling easier to spread. Then sandwich the cooled sponges together with the custardy buttercream.
6. FOR THE CHOCOLATE ICING: Combine the water, syrup and sugar in a saucepan, stirring to dissolve over a low heat. Let it come to the boil and then take it off the heat.
7. Break up the chocolate into small pieces and then add to the pan, swirling it around to cover in the hot liquid. Leave to melt for a few minutes, and then whisk the icing to make it smooth and shiny. Pour over the buttercream filled cake, letting it drip down the sides, and then sprinkle generously with the hundreds and thousands before the icing sets.

Honey Garlic Spareribs

One of my greatest finds in cookbooks is Norma Chikiamco's The Recipes I Love. The recipes are easy to do and came out really yummy. I became a fan of Ms. Chikiamco thru her articles in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. She writes about her kitchen tested recipes and that made me want to grab a copy of her cookbook. Last Christmas, I gave a copy of this cookbook to my best friend and she has great raves about it.

Here's one of my favorite recipe in The Recipes I Love:

Honey Garlic Spareribs

1-1/2 kilo pork spareribs
water for boiling
1 head garlic, crushed
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3/4 cup honey
1/4 cup soy sauce
3 Tbsp white vinegar

In a large stockpot, boil spareribs in enough water to cover until almost tender, about 45 minutes. Remove spareribs from water and arrange in a baking dish.

Combine garlic, pepper, honey, soy sauce and vinegar in a mixing bowl and blend until smooth. Pour over spareribs, making sure to coat meat with the sauce. Cover baking dish with foil. (I like to leave the ribs with this marinade for hours in the ref.)

Preheat oven to 180c for about 15 minutes. Bake ribs (covered) for 15 minutes. Pull out foil and bake for another 10 minutes. Serve ribs with sauce.

Banana Bread

My darleng was craving for a real banana cake. I have been cooking cupcakes and cookies which I liked. He, on the other hand, loves plain banana cake. Here's a recipe from allrecipes.com that was so easy to do and did not lack the banana flavor, and more importantly, did not disappoint my darleng.

Banana Banana Bread By Shelley Albeluhn

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan. (I used an 9 x 9 square pan.)
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

Mixed Vegetable Pickles

We have a lady neighbor who makes vegetables pickles that are so crisp and yummy. It was so addicting that a tub of it won't last for 3 days in our house. One Christmas, we gave these as gifts to family and friends and were well-received. Unfortunately, our lady neighbor got sick and she declined accepting orders for her yummy pickles.

I researched the net for the how-tos and tweeked this recipe from allrecipes.com :
 
1 kilo cucumbers, sliced 1/4" diameter, 2" long
1 kilo carrots, sliced 1/4" diameter, 2" long
1 kilo white raddish, sliced 1/4" diameter, 2" long (alternately, you can also use turnip or singkamas)
1/2 kilo bitter gourd or Ampalaya, sliced 1/4" diameter, 2" long
1/4 kilo shallots, peeled
10 cloves garlic, halved and pounded
1 cup rock salt

3 cups white vinegar
3 cups white sugar
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns

Glass bottle and metal covers for container

1. In a large bowl, mix together cucumbers, carrots, raddish, ampalaya, onions, shallots, garlic and salt. Let stand in the refrigerator overnight.
2. Sterilize bottles and covers. Boil water in a large pot and place glass bottles. Leave for 5 mins and remove from water. Put metal covers in the water and leave for another 5 mins. Remove from heat and let all dry.
3. In a large saucepan, mix the vinegar, white sugar, whole cloves and peppercorns. Bring to a boil. Make sure the sugar is melted.
4. Drain liquid from the vegetable mixture and wash with water. (I found the pickles less salty by washing it.) 5. Stir the vegetable mixture into the boiling vinegar mixture. Remove from heat shortly before the combined mixtures return to boil. 
6. Transfer to sterile containers. Seal and chill in the refrigerator until serving. 

After 1 day we tested the pickles already. It was crunchy, however, because initially I used cidar vinegar both my mom and darleng fround the taste overpowering. I think white vinegar will provide milder taste. This pickles are best paired with pork or chicken barbeque or grilled fish. Enjoy!