25 Sept 2014

taking a breather

Ploughed through eleven hard weeks and finished three assignments back to back to be rewarded with a sweet, break of twelve days for recovery (thought I wish it had been earlier). I've compiled a list of things I wanted to do during this break and getting my Ls is definitely one of them! Inspired by this post I read at the beginning of the year, I want to try making all the components I need to bake this choco moo cheesecake. These will include the milk jam (condensed milk), cream cheese (!!) and ganache. I am not sure if homemade cream cheese will work for this, but it is worth a shot.

To get the gears running again, my sister and I chose an easy chocolate chip cookie recipe from cookpad to bake. She was hoping it would turn out chewy, but it turned out kind of cakey, like a muffin top (yum!). The inclusion of rice flour gave it a nice texture too. I'm not a big fan of chewy cookies, so these worked in my favour but looks like we'll hit the drawing board again to find something she likes.

Oh, by the way - on my last day of placement, I was able to run a cooking activity with some of the students at the Language Centre! As we did not have access to a kitchen, we made chocolate truffles (the crushed biscuits type) and these coconut waffles which were hungrily gobbled down by everyone! It has always been a little dream to teach food tech so I was glad I was given an opportunity to do so.

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chocolate chip muffin tops    makes about 12
adapted from cookpad

I recommend you eat these whilst they are still warm so you get the gooey chocolate centers.

1 large egg
60g caster sugar
60ml cooking oil
100g plain flour
50g rice flour
1 tsp baking powder
50g dark chocolate with sea salt*, chopped into small pieces

Whisk egg and sugar until well combined. Add cooking oil and whisk thoroughly. Sift in flours and baking powder and mix. Fold in the chopped chocolate. 

Allow cookie dough to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. 

Place 12 equal sized blobs** of dough onto a lined baking tray. Leave 2-3cm of space between each piece to allow room for spreading. 

Bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees celcius for 10 minutes or until golden brown. 

*Or just plain dark chocolate with a couple of pinches of sea salt
**I used a small cookie scoop