Friday Fun Food: Baked Donuts

So, Mommy Maggie has tempted me with her baked donuts.  I tell you, I couldn't get it off my mind.  I was waiting till she shares to us her recipe I am able to find a donut molder  (Just teasing, mommy Maggie! :-D ) but hoo hah, one time while Pinteresting, I found this recipe and I just couldn't wait anymore.  I still don't have a donut molder but I thought, what the heck.

 

I said,  I will turn them into a full-fledged donuts, holes included... by hook or crook!

 

I used my good ol' cupcake silicon molder and just poked a hole in the middle of each "donut" using apple core remover (is that how it is called?)

 

The secret weapon

 

When I was all done, making my improvised donut holes, I was blowing the smoke from my apple core remover Lara Croft style.

 



 And there they are!  They look poorly but hey, wait till they get all dressed up!

 

Patience is not one of my strength.  Consider this a warning... let the donuts cool off before trying to remove them from the molder. Or they will end up like this!

 

Peanut butter glaze, baby!

 

So there.  The recipe yielded about a dozen donuts in a mini size... (think of the diameter of a normal cupcake).   There is definitely going to be a repeat of this recipe! Ñom!

 

Home made rice puffs

In the Philippines, rice is a staple food. It's like bread for Spain; will never be out of the picture in a meal.  Heck, we even eat rice for breakfast (or merienda).   Due to hot and humid weather in the Philippines too, food can easily get spoiled and rice is number one victim most often.  Getting food spoiled is my mom's number one pet peeves especially that many times, we wouldn't even have enough food for a whole day.  So my mom has some tricks under her sleeves to recycle left-over and not put them to waste.  One of which is making her own rice puffs.  She would normally do this in the afternoon and we'd wake up from our nap with the smell of rice puffs freshly made with a touch of sugar on top of it.  

These are normally done with the left-over rice; sometimes even rice that are already on the verge of getting spoiled.  The rice is extended on a bilao and let the rice dry up under the sun.  She'd normally put it on top our roof.... ahhh, the memories of drying things up under the sun... daing, pusit.... I gotta stop.

Bilao

Once the rice has completely dried up (hard consistency), she'd fry it in small batches in a deep frying pan.  Voila, home made rice puffs.  She'd sprinkle it with sugar and we'd gobble them hungrily.

I've been wanting to do this here in Spain but I have one big problem:  The moment I put the rice under the sun, they won't last not even for a minute.  The doves and seagulls would feast on it in no time.  So I kind of held back for a while until I discovered that I can dry the rice up in the oven too!  It wasn't bad at all.  Hubby loved 'em.  He ate 'em with his soymilk and his exact word was espectacular! (spectacular).  

Rice puffs freshly made

Close up

As for me, I love it just the way we used to eat them.  Plain rice puffs sprinkled with sugar.  Little Spanish Pinay loved them too!  She ate them like they were chips.  

Here's how I made them:

Preheat oven to 100ºC.  Extend the left-over rice (or even freshly made) on an oven tray covered with parchment paper and place inside the oven.  Lower down the temperature to 80ºC and let it bake for 2 hours or until it's completely dry.

Heat oil on a small deep frying pan. I used a small pot.  250 ml of oil should be enough.  Fry in small batches in over just a minute without letting the rice get browned (unless preferred).

That's it! Easy peasy breezy!

Pandesal!

I've been craving to have pandesal.  Pandesal is a staple bread in the Philippines good to eat anytime of the day but most especially on breakfast and merienda.  It's good to eat plain or with something else like corned  beef, peanut butter, butter (with a hint of sugar), liver spread, chiz whiz, cheese, spam,  and the list is longer than Santa's list.

It's been a while that I've been dreaming of being able to do make my own pandesal because in this part of the world where Filipino or Asian store is unheard of? One can only taste hot pandesal if he makes his own.  Although the name pandesal (pan de sal or salt bread) has a Spanish bread, there's really no pandesal here.... yeah, life's irony.

One day though (that was last week), I found some courage to dirty my hands with bread flour and make my own pandesal. Hubby cheered for me and I swear that really helped a lot.

I tried to search for a simple recipe where ingredients are readily available here and this is the best I found from Kusina ni Manang.

was really happy my pandesal rose! Don't ask me about the shape... rolling and cutting the pandesal dough is something I need to practice more :)

The whole house filling with the smell of fresh bread...

They are finally done.  Looks like a little bit overbaked but they are delish! 

It can still improve though... I believe I didn't give them much time to rise.  The recipe called for rapid rise yeast and I just realized I used a normal yeast so I should have let them rise for a longer time.  So that's lesson learned.  The next time I do them,  I'm pretty sure they'll be even better.

I told hubby to let them cool down a little bit before trying them but he sneaked behind my back this sneaky sneaky man.  But I am really happy he loved pandesal.  Yesterday he just told me he can't wait for me to make some more.  (His subtle way of commanding me to make some more)

home made pandesal partnered with home made peanut butter IS happiness :)

Crashed Potato

Looks yummy? IT IS! 

photo source 

Let me tell you a short story first...

Yesterday, I wasn't so sure what to prepare for lunch.  I wanted something really quick but not a blah if you know what I mean.  Hubby is still watching his diet (I suppose we all should watch our diet for obvious health reasons, yes?) so that also added some more challenge over the choice of what to cook for lunch.  And I must say, this scenario repeats itself everyday.  The never ending question:  What to cook today?

Somewhere along the way, between work, like a manna from heaven this recipe popped up on my screen.  It looked a bit complicated at first but as I was reading the step by step and looking at the photos, I realized it was totally on the contrary.  We love potatoes in this household and potatoes is one of those items in hubby's diet list (provided by the family doctor) that can be eaten daily.  Easy recipe? Favorite foody? Can be eaten daily?  We have a winnerie! I know there's no such word as winnerie, but I am trying to make everything rhyme ok? Just dig it.

It turned out so good it will be a crime if I do not share it.  While you can just follow the link above for the recipe, I have here my own version.  Sooo here we go!

Put amount of potatoes you like into boiling salted water.  The presentation will be prettier if you use smaller potatoes, so then you wouldn't have to cut them.  I only have humungous potatoes at home so I had to cut them into smaller pieces.  But I tell you, it didn't affect the taste of this recipe in a bad way at all.  No need to peel the potato.  The fun is in the skin!  Just make sure they are washed thoroughly :)  Let the potatoes boil until fork-tender.

Here you can use a cookie sheet.  I don't have a big one so I just used the oven tray and covered it with a baking sheet.   Then I poured over some olive oil.  This is the part where I wish I have an oil dispenser so I can pour the oil in a more even distribution and then it can look more professional.  But hey, no sweat... you can just spread the oil with the potato or a brush.

Line up the potatoes and make sure you put enough space between them.

Crash the potato.  This is the heart of this recipe.  If you have a potato masher, yay for you! Use it.  Crash the potato down in one swift movement then rotate the masher 90 degrees and then crash the potato down again.  If you are like me and you don't have a potato masher, be creative and use anything that can work to flatten the potatoes a bit.  I used a combination of the bottom of a glass and fork to give texture.

Using a brush, spread olive oil on top of each crashed potatoes.  Be generous, don't be afraid.  Or yes, be afraid and watch out the calories :-D  Don't say I am not promoting good health.

The original recipe called for Kosher salt to be sprinkled on top.  I don't even know what's Kosher salt so therefore, I don't have it at home.  But I have my pink salt and it was just perfect.  I am so loving this Himalayan salt.  Just like how Kosher was described, Himalayan salt adds pizzazz in your food but not making it taste like salt.  I don't know if that makes sense but it's just cool!  So sprinkle whatever salt you have at home.

Here you sprinkle some rosemary or whatever herb you like.  I used rosemary and garlic powder.  We love garlic here.  You can also sprinkle some cheese perhaps or even bacon bits.  Or if you want to go a bit wild on the health issue use butter instead of olive oil to spread on top of potato. You can choose healthier or yummier :-D  The possibilities are endless!

Ok, then finally, put the cookie sheet or the baking tray on the top most rack of the oven with high temp like 230ºC or 450ºF for about 20minutes or until you see potatoes turned into beautiful yummy golden brown.

When done, scoop them out, baby! and impress your hubby or loved ones at home :)  Eat them, they're really good!  Just by the smell, you'd know it's amazingly good.

This is a very good side dish.  With steak perhaps.  Or it can be your main dish too if you are a real potato lover... then add some cauliflower or broccolis on the side.. .again the possibilities are endless!

So here are my potatoes.  I know they are nothing like the first photo above.  That one is from the site where I copied the recipe from.  Remember, I didn't use potato masher? Coz I don't have one? So my potatoes turned out a little bit flatter.  But they're good.  I am not even sure I'd prefer it any other way.  Being flatter, it made the potato really crispy.... so I guess in the end, it depends on how you like your potatoes to be :)

I tell you, try this out! You won't regret it.  It's suuuuuuper easy and terribly yummy.  It was so good, hubby and I decided to do it again in the evening.  You know I'm talking about the potatoes, right? Yeah, the crashed potatoes ;-)

Chicken Pastel

I've seen this recipe from Panlasang Pinoy and I thought I just have to try it.  The only challenge is the dough that needs to be put on top of the whole chicken mix.  This mama has started to learn baking but not making dough or bread... so it was a challenge for me.  But then, I had an idea.  I saw a ready-made dough for making empanadas(similar to a pie) here in Spain.  So I thought perhaps I can use that.  Then here comes hubby poking his nose on my cooking (I actually asked his opinion ;-) ) and told me that hojaldre dough is better and tastier.  Hojaldre is a type of pastry that is flaky. It is also called danish pastry. 

Hojaldre in my hand, I prepared to do the chicken pastel.  

Ingredients:

2 lbs boneless chicken breast, cubed
2 pieces Chorizo (or Chinese sausage) I used whatever chorizo I had in the fridge.  It was a chorizo criollo but perhaps even chorizo de bilbao in the Philippines would be a good substitute.  I am not actually familiar with chinese sausage heh.
2 pieces Beef franks (or Vienna sausage, hotdogs) I used bratwurst coz that's what I have :) This is what I love about cooking... it's easy to substitue ingredients and you can still get the same or even better result.
1 regular sized carrots, cubed
1 regular sized potato, cubed
2 tbsp flour
1 cup chicken stock I just boiled a cup of water and then dissolve a chicken broth cube in it.
6 to 10 pieces green olives  I used those conserved olives in a bottle and they tasted really nice in the chicken pastel.

 

3 tbsp soy sauce
1 pc lemon (or 5 pieces calamansi) In this part of the world, calamansi is unheart of so I definitely used lemon.
1 cup white mushroom sliced (or button mushrooms) I used the fresh ones but I'm pretty sure canned ones would be ok too.

1 cup butter I just used half cup
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
3 cups water

Can't bake? Make a cake using microwave - soooooooo easy, trust me!

I was first reluctant to try this recipe because baking a cake using microwave? Kinda weird, no? At least for a new baking-mom like me. But it turned out to be really moist and sponge-like not to mention a nice treat to the palate. 

So without further ado, here's the recipe and the how-to:

Ingredients:

4 eggs
20 Biscuits (like Marie) -
 
1 cup of Nesquik (I used colacao - local brand here in Spain)
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
¾ cup of sunflower oil (perhaps any vegetable oil is ok too)
1 pack of powdered yeast (about 15g)

In a big bowl, put the eggs and the sugar and using an electric hand mixer, beat until the volume doubles.

Add the milk and then continue beating. Add the oil and beat some more.

Mix the yeast with chocolate powder (Nesquick) then slowly add until everything is well blended.

Once everything is well mixed, add the biscuits. I previously pounded the bisuits with mortar and pestle. The original recipe I found says to just break the biscuits in small bits but after putting the batter in the microwave, there were still some big chunks of biscuits left. So the next time I did this, I pounded the biscuits. Turned out better.

Once the batter becomes homogenous, place it in a rounded cake molder (previously buttered if not using a silicon one). Pop it in the microwave and use the max power. Our microwave only has 750W and it took 10.5 minutes for the cake to bake perfectly!  For a 900W, 8 minutes should be enough.

After 10.5 minutes, I did the toothpick test and it came out clean so I took it out from the microwave. I used a 23cm molder so the cake turned out a bit thin but it still looked good.  It turned out really nice.  It took me 30minute for everything - preparation and baking.  

Let the cake cool down for at least 15minutes before serving or removing from the molder.  And of course why not put a simple design to make it even more appetizing.  I have these cookie cutters in different shapes.  I placed them on top of the cake and then sprinkled sugar confectioner on top.

So, ladies (and gents) go ahead and try it out. Trust me, this is really easy to do. Kids (and adults) will really love this :-)

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