Musings of a Traveling Chef

With my current work, I'm usually off on Thursday.  That means I get to bake or make desserts.  Today, I decided to try a brownies recipe from Bailiwick Academy.  As brownies are considered entry-level baking, I imagine it will work out fine.  Looking at the recipe, I noticed that it would be too sweet for my guinea pigs.  I tweaked the measurement and the ingredients and came out with this delectable walnut fudge brownies which passed my guinea pigs sweet tooth. Walnut Fudge Brownies Ingredients: 200g melted unsalted butter 190g brown sugar 190g white sugar 70g Hershey's dark cocoa powder 30g Hershey's cocoa powder 4 medium size eggs 130g all purpose flour 3g baking powder 200g walnuts Maldon sea salt flakes (optional)

For the past week, I've attended two bread courses which I believe has earning potential when I migrate to the US.  If you've been following my blog, I'm into breads more than cakes.  Even if I've been attending bread making classes for quite some time, never did my instructors mentioned the 12 steps of bread making.  These steps are essential and quite practical for beginner bread enthusiasts. The 12 steps are as follow: 1.   Selecting your ingredients :  make sure to choose the best quality and unexpired ingredients.  If you choose to use instant yeast, do a test before you bake breads to ensure that your yeast is still active.  You wouldn't want to rest your dough for a long time without any rise. 2.   Weigh ingredients :  it is very important to be accurate with your ingredients.  You wouldn't want to kill your yeast because of too much salt or too hot water.  Best to sift your flour as it gives a softer dough. ...

Fresh from the new addition to The Hutong's Baking Made Easy class is a pie making class.  I never like pies but I'm intrigued with the process.  Moreover, the class promised to create two types of pie: savory and sweet. For the savory pie, we made Mrs. Hering's Famous Chicken Pot Pie.  For the sweet pie, we made the classic Apple Pie.  I didn't know making pies was easy and fun.  I'm planning to recreate the apple pie in the near future because it was that good.  Moreover, even if it's not freshly baked when eaten, it's still so good. Classic Apple Pie Ingredients: (one large pie) Pie Crust 1 cup flour 2 tbsp sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 150g cold butter 3 tablespoons ice cold water Apple Filling 4 apples (peeled) 170 gm sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 tablespoon lemon juice