Peanut Butter Rice Krispies

Sorry for the lack of posts, it's due to the sheer amount of time I spend out and about. The worst thing about Indonesia is probably the traffic and it takes literally more than 1.5 hours each time I go out to a destination. It even took me 3 hours just to get from the airport to where I live, it was pretty crazy, considering that in Australia, that's enough to get me hopping around interstate! And another bad point? I don't have a proper oven over here so recipe experimenting is a tad restricted. All I could think of was these rice krispies because I was craving LCM's. They're ridiculously easy but yum too, especially the peanut butter ones. 

Enough of the bad points, there are also tons of nice things here, like you can basically live the high life here because everything seems so cheap to people who are used to living overseas. Premier tickets for the movies are worth the equivalent of $6 AUD, english fiction novels an average of $10, cake tins and pans as cheap as $2. And shopping is great with ZARA, MANGO, Pull & Bear, Stradivarius, Bershka, Topshop and Charles and Keith at your disposal in most shopping centers. Oh and don't get me started on the food. There's been a very big increase in chic cafe/brunch style restaurants lately which has wonderful decor and interior at really affordable prices. The Ismaya Group is like the Indonesian version of the Merivale Group in Sydney which manages quite a few nice appealing-to-young-people type of dining places, from bars/louncges to restaurants. 

But since I don't have many friends here, only cousins, I thought it'd be a good idea to use time productively and go enrol for some cooking course. Near my house, there's one for french patisserie for 15 sessions where we get to learn making french desserts like opera cakes and eclairs. I'll see how it goes, I'll probably start in January because actually tomorrow, I'll be off on a Europe tour! As much as I'm excited for it, it's a real shame that since it's a tour, it would be really difficult to get around just by ourselves to discover places around and so really unflexible. It would also probably be a pain going around different countries withing a matter of days- Paris only for 2 days!? Soo not enough! I'll keep waiting for an opportunity to go on a France-only tour... I probably won't post on here till I come back, but I'll have picture updates through my instagram, so follow that if you want. 

Peanut Butter Rice Krispies

Recipe from Rice Krispies Site

Makes 24 squares

1/4 cup butter

1 (10 oz., about 40) pkg. regular marshmallows or 3 cups miniature marshmallows
1/2 cup peanut butter

6 cups Kellogg's Rice Krispies cereal

1. In a large saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Add the marshmallows and continue to stir until the marshmallows have completely melted. Stir in peanut butter until melted and smooth. Remove from heat.

2. Stir in the Kellogg's Rice Krispies cereal coating them well with the melted marshmallow mixture.

3. Using a buttered or silicone spatula, press the mixture evenly into a 13 x 9 x 2 inch pan which has been buttered or sprayed with non-stick spray or lined with wax paper.

4. Cut into squares when the mixture cools.

Tiramisu

This is probably one of those deserts that hold a special place for me because it's one of the best-tasting thing I made when I was still just really getting into baking all sorts. When I look back, I can't help but think that I had been overly proud thinking it had been an incredible feat since making tiramisu is a complete no-brainer, just mixing ready ingredients for the cream mixture and dipping biscuits... I think it's because when I was younger, my mum would always tell me it was hard work making tiramisu because she insisted it wouldn't taste nice if you didn't bake your own sponge cake layers. So she only made it ever so rarely which meant taking matters into my own hands and just using the usual sponge fingers. I think they're equally delicious, but maybe if I had wanted neater layers, making sponge cake layers that fit tins perfectly would be nice. But the moral of the story is don't be stubborn and be afraid to take shortcuts, because sometimes a shortcut isn't there to trick you but is there to simply be what it is- make our lives easier.

My group of friends would also remember this dessert as the first thing I've made for them to what we jokingly say 'bribe' them into our friendship. It's not as bad as it sounds; I was just starting out my days in a new school and finally settled into a group (if you have ever been a new student in an awkward time when it feels like everyone is already in their own cliques, you know how stressful the early days were...) and it happened to be someone's birthday soon, so I volunteered making some tiramisu because I had a successful practice round the week before and everyone loved it so I was glad to keep my new friends happy and if you're wondering, yes, I did managd to get out of my miserable new-girl hole and have just finished graduating high school with the same friends as the one I started with, after 3 years... It felt so short!

Easy Homemade Pizza Base

The other day, my friend and I made a bet and we made it that if I win, she'll have to make me a cheesecake (mind you, she's not normally a baker so she winced at that idea despite it being a no-bake cheesecake) and if she wins, I would surrender and make her tiramisu. Turns out when she came over, not only did we make tiramisu but also a bonus- pizza. Yeah, we were having an Italian feast. She has never made homemade pizza base before so she completely flipped when I suggested making our own bases! This recipe is super super easy, the yeast didn't even have to be mixed with the water and be left to rest for a few minutes! It's basically just dumping all the ingredients together and kneading a very easy to work with dough. It's certainly a great way to involve kids or non-cooks in the kitchen.

I topped mine with store brought pizza sauce, spanish onion, chorizos, diced smoked ham, rocket and baby spinach leaves, corn and generous handfuls of cheese. Too bad we forgot to buy mushrooms!

 The result was soft, pillowy bases which I prefer more than thin crusts. But I'm sure that if you adjust  how you roll your dough (thin or thick) or baking times, it'll turn out the way you like them. So anyway, I'll be sure to use this recipe again and again. It's seriously so much better than buying storebrought pizza bases!

Japanese Cotton Soft Cheesecake

I've always wanted to attempt this type of japanese cheesecake and I had cream cheese lying in the fridge for ages so I'm glad I finally got around to it! The result was really soft, light, spongy, smooth cheesecake- it was a pretty good replication of the ones you can get from asian bakeries. My attempt wasn't very successful though as the centre of the cheesecake sunk terribly, despite looking puffy in the oven. It really must have something to do with the square pan I was using... Make sure you use a round one! But other than that, I was happy that the tops didn't wrinkle terribly and the recipe was all fairly straight forward so I'll be sure to try it out again next time. I'll be off to Indonesia tomorrow so after some catch-up recipe posts, there will probably be more travel style posts! I'll see you soon on the other side!

Rhubarb Earl Grey Custard Tart

I've never cooked with rhubarb before or incorporated tea into desserts yet other than powdered green tea. So when I saw Russel's (Chasing Delicious) earl grey berry tart and Viviane's (At Down Under) rhubarb tart, I was inspired to combine these two new things into one recipe. The result was great, there was a nice subtleness of the smooth earl grey steeped custard which paired well with the tartn ess of the rhubarb. If you don't like earl grey, I think it would also be great to just replace it with usual english breakfast. After this, I really want to somehow incorporate more tea into the desserts I make, it's just such a genius idea and makes things sound a little more fancy, no? 

And the HSC is finally over. It's not as scary as people make it sound like... I was even able to manage this tart 2 days before an exam. Baking things in between exams definitely was a good down time for me. I will now be embracing my big 4 month holiday now!! I will be going back to Jakarta shortly, sometime next week. I don't have alot of proper cooking material and equipment there so it might be hard to post recipes. I wish I could take all my pots and pans but alas, that is not possible...But there will definitely be a whole lot of dining out reviews. I realise it may not be applicable, but hmm, I think the blog will start to be more of a travel blog in the next few weeks with recommendations tips for when any of you comes to Jakarta? There's still some issues with visa and whatnots, but if it all goes down well, I may even be able to go to Europe and that'll be a hell lot of fun to blog about! So lots of travelling planned, and it's not a good trip without good food so I'll be sure to document everything. 

Moist Banana Cake

Another easy everyday cake recipe today! To be honest, I didn't make it, I've still been pretty busy so mum's been doing the baking lately. This is just one of her specialty, when it comes to foolproof cakes, she's the boss, I prefer trying new recipes and ticking my to-do baking list even if it means some boo-boos on the way rather than stick to old favourites. Yes, I'm a fearless, courageous, risk taking young woman haha. So today, it's a super moist, non-crumbly banana cake. On her recipe book it's titled "exquisite banana cake", I think she got it the recipe from a friend but well, if it has "exquisite" in the title, must be something pretty special right?

Another little secret: I only got the chance to photograph it on the second day, because it was pretty gloomy the day she made it. And by the time I opened the box to see the precious cake models for the day, shock-horror, they were already cut up in slices and in halves! This was quite upsetting because I had spent the whole of the night before on my bed thinking about how I should arrange the loaf before going to sleep. You know those moments just before you go to sleep and you just think about nothing or things that happened that day, and things you hope will happen in the near future? So yeah, for me, it was all about banana cakes that night. But luckily, I pieced them together skillfully and hid cuts with some shred of brown paper bag and dressed it up with some pink bakers twine I bought at Etsy. No one would've known it was already cut up right? 

 Mum also made one loaf with sultanas and the other without. If you want the sultana ones make sure you coat the sultanas with flour before folding them into the batter to prevent them all from sinking. Feel free to jazz it up with some nuts too, I'm sure walnuts and pecan would make it even more delish, if you're a nut-person. And how I wish I had fresh flowers blooming in my garden that I could just pick a few to enhance the setting for the shoots. Too bad I don't, heck, I don't even really have a white tablecloth, I just use a big sheet of white cardboard and sometimes when I need to, patch it up with some white A4 papers. Teehee, you didn't know that either. Man, alot of secrets are being revealed today... So anyway, in trying to make the setting interesting, I just made some iced chocolate (which yes, I had to drink the 2 glasses myself because no one was willing to help) and added some paper dollies and grabbed my rarely-used-tea-cakes-forks. I always thought it was always too showy to look good in food photos but I think considering the banana cake was pretty simple, it's a good complement! I just need to go prop shopping, pronto.