Distractions

Hello Reader!

I know I've been missing in action for the last week, and I guess the title says it all. Distractions are every where this week. Freaky science fictions TV series, birthday parties, guest coming over, making dessert for a family gathering, and saying good bye (for now) to good friends, last week was one hell-of-a week.

Anyway, lets get on with the food part of this stuff. So I made, a tropical fruit tart, Berry and vanilla Panna cottas, as well as a small blue berry cream tart with the extra tart dough.
And yes, it was delicious. I spoiled myself, just a little. :)

I used Martha's Pate Sucree recipe which I love love love! It's easy, quick (kind of), and most important crisp and crumbly. Perfect for most any filling or sweet, dessert pie you want to make. And it holds up great if you want a free form pie.But I tweaked it a bit, the butter was to much for me, so cut it down to 1 stick (1/2 cup), and it worked fine.

So heres the recipe:

It makes enough for two 9 inch pies

Ingredients:

• 2 egg yolks
• 1 stick of butter (cut into cubes)
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 2 tbs of cream ( or full cream milk is fine)
• 2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour
• a pinch of salt

Combine flour, salt, and sugar in the mixer bowl, and mix. With the mixer on slow, slowly add the little cubes of butter and mix till combined. Mean while whisk the egg yolks and cream or milk, and slowly add to the mixer. Turn on to medium speed ( be careful the flour may splash). When it looks like everything is combined, its ready. Scrape out the dough, and wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour. OR take little chunks of the dough and press in to the pan, then you and place it in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes and bake directly in a 350 degree oven until golden brown. Then wrap with plastic and freeze the rest.

:)

MIA

Hello reader! 

I know I've been MIA lately, but I promise it will all pay off soon. This whole week I worked on making croissant, and it was a major faliure (major failures to be exact). But! I think I'm getter closer,so there's still hope!

But till the next post, keep munch'in on these little babies. 

 

S'more Sundae

Hello Reader.

Its time to reveal my secret plan for my super chunky, clunky rocky road ice cream. Here it is, the S'more Sundae. 6 layers of overflowing chocolate goodness on a perfectly sunny Monday afternoon. Oh, life's good. I spoiled myself a little today. <3

I was inspired by this great post on S'more pudding Jars  I saw on Food Gawker, and I thought it would be perfect for my little get together. Sweet cold ice cream would be a perfect way to end dinner


So lets get jiggly with the layers:
(bottom  up)

The Cookie Crust- Crushed digestive biscuits, or graham crackers.

Chocolate Fudge-Its just traditional chocolate fudge! And it's so gooey and great! Serious Eats has an awesome recipe for this. Here! 

Brownie Chunks-Here any brownie recipe will do, it depends if you want them soft and gooey in the center or fully baked and chewy.The recipe I used is from Joy the Baker.

Rocky Road Ice Cream-The recipe for this is in my last post. It's chalk full with white chocolate chunks, crushed almonds, mini marshmallows, and tiny brownie chunks.

Topped with a soft&sweet toasted marshmallow, this sundae has the crunchy, chewy, gooey and awesomeness to give you a sugar high for the rest of the day. True story. :)

Fudge Brownie:

• 1 2/3 cups of sugar 
• 3/4 of cocoa powder 
• 3/4 Butter
• 2 Tbs of water or coffee
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp of vanilla
• 1 1/3 of All porpouse flour
• 1/4 salt
• 1/2 baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease the pan you choose to use ( I used a 9in round springform).

Combine butter, cocoa powder in a sauce pan and place over medium heat and melt butter. Once the butter is melted, add the water of coffee to the mixture and whisk till combined. Set aside let cool a little while.

Then in a medium size bowl, whisk eggs and sugar. Add vanilla extract and stir in the butter and cocoa mixture slowly, stir till combined.

Add flour, salt, and baking powder to the mixture and stir until everything is combined. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 20-25 minutes. Or until a tooth pick comes out clean. (or not clean if you like them a bit under cooked) 

Worth the wait.

Hello reader.
For the last 1 1/2 months my mom and I have been vigorously working on designing my own little kitchen! And it's finally done! We put the final touches on the place today, and I love it.

And to celebrate this little kitchen, I'm having some friends over for dinner (It's gonna be fun :B ). When my peeps come over its all about the good stuff. The fudgy brownies, loads of chocolate, just a day to let loose and stuff your face. So this time I have something a little special planed for my guest. <3

ROCKY ROAD:
White Chocolate+Sugar Toasted Almonds+Mini Marshmallows and fudge brownie chunks, sounds like a dream doesn't it? And all of this in a scoop of beautiful home made ice cream.
I was just looking through Serious Eats for some ideas for the party and voila! I found this great Rocky Road Recipe that would be perfect.

 One thing most people don't know about Yangon is that we don't have hazel nuts, or almonds or nuts that grow in non tropical places. Now and then if I'm lucky, I can get a hold of some, but most of the time it's only when I travel that i get a hold on them. So when the recipe called for hazel nuts, I just used almonds, but if you have hazel nuts use 'em! Everyone knows hazel nuts are chocolate's best friend, just look at Nuetulla.
And instead of dark chocolate chips I added little chunks of fudge brownies. Ummmm. Fudge Brownies. :B

Right now it's in the freezer ready for some scoop's tomorrow! I have big plans for this batch of ice cream, big, fudgy, whipped cream topped with a toasted marshmallow plans.

Yangon Heat

Jello!

The title might be a little miss leading, but with all this hot-talk going on in the world I thought something cool, creamy and chocolatey would be the perfect break.

I present to you (drum roll please) The Banana Split Ice Cream Cake! It's got the whole shabang, moist chocolate cake, chocolate fudge, bananas, and cool ice cream to keep it all together.

So lets get jiggly with it. First off you need a really, really good chocolate cake for this. One that will stay moist after a day in the freezer and yet will hold together when you assemble the layers. I found one perfect for this cake (I'll post the recipe later, promise), and it's from Joanne Chang's Flour. Its chalk full of really great recipes, I really love it because there's a lotta detail in explaining the methods and stuff. :)

So alls you need when you have the perfect chocolate cake is:

• 2 large ripe bananas sliced
• Chocolate fudge (or ganache is fine)
• One tub of ice cream of any flavor
• And frosting.

+Heres what you need to do:

• Once the cake is cooled, slice the cake into 2 layers. 
• You want all the parts of the cake to be ready, so you can work fast before the ice cream melts!
• So line the spring form pan with parchment paper with a circle at the bottom and strips on the sides. Then put the top half of the cake and place it inside the pan with the cut side on the bottom.
• Then take a knife and cut the ice cream into slabs and place them on the first layer of cake in the pan, try to cover as much  as you can.
• Then spread bananas over the ice cream layer as evenly as possible.
• Pour and spread out chocolate fudge over the bananas, the place the bottom half of the cake with the bottom side up into the pan.
• Cover with plastic wrap and leave over night in the freezer. 
• After at least 4-6 hours, remove plastic wrap  and unlatch the spring from pan and start frosting (see notes)
• If the cake looks melty when you are working on it, just put it back in the freezer. Theres nothing to fear! 
• Then decorate with whatever you want! Crushed almonds, M&N's, mini marshmallows, you name it! 
• Return to freezer at least 2 hours before serving!

Layers top to bottom: Toppings/frosting
/cake/bananas/fudge/ice cream/cake.

+ Notes:

• Use a springform pan or the one with the removable bottom, or your cake won't come out! 
• I did this for a 9' cake, but adjustment are very easy to make. Just make the size that you want  and assemble with smaller portions of bananas, fudge and ice cream.
• I just used the simple chocolate frosting from my last post, cause I love the balance it brings to the sweetness with the pinch of salt. But any frosting is great with this cake.
• But frosting with a high butter content is not a good idea, because the cold might cause it to  crack when you cut into it.

The best eats in Yangon: Mont Hin Gar

If you are planning to travel to Myanmar for the first time heres a couple of things you should know (if you can get in that is, just kidding :B ).
1.) The food will be very different.
2.) Some restaurants will be on the expensive side
3.)Be careful of what you eat! Not everything is "Myanmar FDA" approved.
3.5) But! its still great food.

Thank you Tun Tun Photography for this picture. :)

If you ask a guide or the person at your hotel, what is the most popular dish of Yangon, they will probably say Mont-hin-gar.
Basically it's a fresh rice noodles with a fish based soup, with a verity of fritters like beans (as seen), gourd, onions with baby shrimps, etc.
 And the best Mont hingar (in my opinion) is at Oo Yin street, on Inya road. Since Mont hingar is traditional eaten for breakfast, it sells out fast. About 8:30-9:00 am to be exact. But thats not the only place in town, Mont hingar is available all through out the city.
Here are some other places with great Mont hingar:

Feel Restaurant/tea shop:
124 Pyidaungsu Yeiktha Str., Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar
This is a great place for authentic Burmese food. You can get anything from traditional bean fritters (Ba ya chaw) to nice cool Korafii.

Here's more information on Feel.

Bout Taw teashop:
It has no specific address, I'll up date this bit later.

This place is notorious for its great afternoon mont hingar and mote ti (Mont hingar from Rakhine state). Along with other special treats like stuffed fish cakes will really get you sweating. If you have a guide you can ask them, or just email me! :) I'll be glad to give you directions.

How to use a liter of heavy cream.

Hello reader.

So my last sit-in was all about Tiramisu, which was quite easy. It was all about assembling the parts and pieces like the sponge cake, mascarpone cream, and the kahlua/irish cream/coffee. We don't have the Italian lady-finger sponge thingys in Myanmar, so we made little adjustments (which were just as delicious :B )

ANYWAY lets get jiggly with what this post is really about. Cream. Heavy cream to be exact.
There are so many types of cream that it's confusing (it is for me anyway). So I found this little guide to different types of cream. I wanted a cheese cake recipe I learned at Sharky's, so I got a liter of heavy cream. But! I only needed 160 grams, and now I need to use it up before it goes bad.

And here's how!

Panna Cotta, its quick and easy and just what I needed to fill up my time. I found the perfect Panna cotta recipe on David Lebovitz's blog, he has such great recipes it's really a treasure trove for foodies. I added the strawberry compote to balance the creamy-ness of the cooked cream, it's really something.
 Anyway here's the recipe:

Panna Cotta with a Strawberry compote:

Panna cotta-
4 cups of heavy cream
1/2 cup of sugar
2tsp of vanilla (or 1 vanilla pod)
2 pkg of gelatin (if you're using gelatin sheets it's 6 sheets)
6 tbs of cold water

1.) Heat the cream and sugar in a sauce pan until the sugar dissolves. Then remove from heat and add vanilla. (if using vanilla bean, split bean and add to the cream before you put of on the stove, then the flavors will come out)
2.) Lighty oil cups/ molds with neutral tasting oil.

3.) Sprinkle gelatin over cold water then let dissolve for 5-10 minutes.
OR
soften the gelatin sheets in some water then add just the soften gelatin to the cream when its time to combine the two.

4.)Add the gelatin to the cream and stir until dissolved.

5. Divide mixture into molds and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

Strawberry Compote:

1/3 cup of defrosted strawberries

2 1/2 tbs of sugar

and a twist of lime/lemon.

1.Combine all of this in a sauce pan and cook until the juices of the strawberries are at the consistency of a syrup. You might want to add 1-2 tbs of water if the strawberries don't bleed ( It's a weird way to put it but its true)

Bananas&Berries

Hello there.
 Yesterday I was checking out some of the blogs and I saw this great, beautiful, cute tutorial for a Patriotic Summer Berry Cake from Bakingdom. I think its a new creative way to decorate a cake! It's really cute and unique, and sometime I just want to just a lotta colors on my cake.

I ended up not fellowing the recipe for the cake part of it, but it was still a mixed berry cake. I just added a mixed berry puree to a vanilla cake recipe. This was kind of the first time I've used self-raising flour, and I have to say I like the results. Maybe it's just the recipe, or the ratios of fat or whatever, but it was one good fluffy cake. It was hard to put on the crumb coat cause it was too crumbly, but it was handle-able.

So I filled with some bananas, yes it is an odd combination, but it works. Doing the frosting was the best part of job, it's like playing with frosting but better! Cause I actually get a great cake outta it. :)

Good news all around :D

Today has been such a great day. :)

1. I just got my AP Psychology scores. And it's all good.
2.The renovation at my baking kitchen is almost done! xD Finally.
3.I made some perfect macaroons. Finally!
 And I had home made pizza for lunch, so thats a plus.

So yesterday was the last day of making macaroons at Sharky's, and like I said, practice did make perfect--macaroons. Hopefully this macaroon making sessions will stick around for a long time.
Tomorrow is another intern-sit in session at Sharky's and its time for tiramisu! I'm so psyched about it I'm smiling like a fool.




I found this awesome quick and easy pizza crust recipe  on all recipes, and it was exactly like it promised quick and easy. It's perfect for pizza parties where guest choose their own toppings and stuff, it only takes 15-20 minutes to bake, and a total to 20 minutes to make the dough. 

Yay for second chances!

Today was my second day at Sharky's and this time it was my turn to make macaroons. So while I started measuring out the ingredients the head baker watched and helped me, I was so nervous and excited! :BBB The little monsters turned out great this time around, even though they were kind of uneven in size. But practice makes perfect right? 

There where so many things I did wrong the other day! The oven temperature was too low, the sugar mixture was not heated enough, the ground almond was a little bit too course (Sharky's uses ground Cashews instead, and it works great). Speaking about cashews, it gives the macaroons another flavor cause cashew nuts have their own little spunk. 

First Attempt at Macaroons: Not so bad.

First attempt at Macaroons, well I guess they turned out okay. They didn't develop the little layer called the ped (or something like that) but they weren't hollow inside, so I can check that off the list of things wrong. The shells looked more like glossy cookies more than macaroon shells. But hey, I think it's a good out come as a 1st try after one sit in. 

The results 

I filled these little monsters with a simple fluffy chocolate frosting. I really really love this frosting because it still lets you taste the creamy butter and the cocoa is not so robust. But if you like your chocolate you can always add more cocoa to make it bold. For the macaroons I added more cocoa than usual to get a dark chocolate flavor. 

Ingredients: 

-1/2 cup of Butter (room temp) 

-1 1/3 icing sugar

-little bit of milk (depends on what you want for the consistency)

-Cocoa(this also depends on you)

-Sprinkle of Salt! (This just gives the frosting a kick in the face. It's like chocolate milk and salt.)

-a splash of vanilla

Here's what do to!

-Cream butter until fluffy and light

-Add icing sugar and milk stop when it starts to get to the right consistency.

-Beat on high speed until fluffy and smooth

-Add vanilla, cocoa and salt.

-Repeat the 3rd step.

Tada! Simple fluffy frosting! 

First Day at Sharky's

Hello :)

Today was my first sitting in and interning at Sharky's. Sharky's is one of the few places in Yangon where we can get artisan breads, baked goods and healthy fresh foods. Its audience is mostly foreigners who are working and living in Yangon, but this is starting to change with all the exposure of western food.

So today I learn how to properly make macaroons! I was so excited because I've tired them before, but it didn't really work out. When i made them the little shells were hollow and to fragile, and they didn't really develop the little feet at the bottom.

I'm going to test out what I learned today, tomorrow! So be expecting some not hollow, well footed macaroons. :B

Odd things

      I'm odd and I'm proud and ironically, it's a very odd thing to say. At first I was kind-of embarrassed about the "odd things" that I do, but somethings are just to fun to hide. I occasionally play house with my 16 year old odd ball friend, just yesterday I was throwing eggs off my roof testing my egg protection system just for fun.
      My family doesn't mind unless it's getting really annoying or if my mom finds out. But the thing that annoys my mom and my house keeper is that I love eat Ice Kachang when it's really cold out side (which is not often, and by really cold I mean pouring rain).
       I guess it's a Singapore thing, but theres also a Myanmar version of the Ice Kachang. The picture is the Singaporean version with lots of colors, kidney beans, jelly blocks, and dairy creamer. It's really good, and there are many other versions with just clear sugar syrup, and other types of beans.
      But the Myanmar version includes salty peanuts, a dollop condensed milk, kidney beans, traditional black jelly (Grass Jelly) along with jelly blocks and one or 2 flavored juice syrup. The peanuts bring a new taste and texture to the icy dessert, its saltiness balances out the sweetness. And when your mouth starts to get numb from all the ice, the peanuts give a crunch factor to the dish.



It's really easy to make this at home, its perfect for a hot summer day or in my case a really rainy one after lunch. :]
We have a manuel ice shredder at home kinda like this one, so it's a quick , easy dessert if you have guests.

Ingredients: 


-Shredded Ice
-Jelly chunks
-Kidney beans or Black beans (Canned is fine)
-Condensed milk
-Crushed peanuts (crushing optional, I like mine hole)
-Juice Syrup with a flavor of your choice


1. Shred the ice in a individual bowl until it starts to mound up, then take your hand and just push down on the ice to pack it (kinda like a snow ball).

2. Add beans, jelly. It depends how you like your Ice Kachang.

3.Drop a dollop of condensed milk on the ice, then spread about table spoon of juice syrup all over the ice. Then sprinkle some crushed peanuts over the top and enjoy!

Thank you The Blooming Pen for the picture. And Thank you for reading, heres a picture of the Swiss Alps from our summer vacation. :]

Poppin Profiteroles

So it's almost my big brother birthday and I am kind getting bored with summer vacation so I tested out Joy the Baker's Strawberry Cream Puffs. I've made profiteroles a couple of times testing different recipes but, they haven't work out quite as well as this one. They were all puffed up with hot air and perfectly structured not to collapse into it self. Before they would just "un-puff", all flat and sad :[ 

Now on to the good stuff.

I used the recipe for the puffs but I replace the strawberry cream filling with whipped cream and chocolate frosting (I over whipped my whipped cream, turned it into butter, so I made frosting). Anyway it's kinda hard to get heavy cream in Yangon, along with freeze dried strawberries. 

In previous recipes I've tried it's always been a wooden spoon to beat in the eggs but the batter is always runny and drooping from the pipping bag and it's always a big mess in the kitchen. These stayed in perfect little swirling mounds just like anime poop. 

Some things I noticed, I think the puffs need a little more time in the oven cause the first batch was a little pale. Just a few more minutes in the oven on the top rack to color them and harden them up more for structure. :) I think thats all.

Oh, and I learned that over whipping turns whipping cream turns it in to butter! :D I was so confused  at first, then it just started to look and feel like butter. I found the scientific explanation for this creamy phenomenon here.   

Excited/Scared-New comer

Hi. :]

      This is kind-of my first blog post, and my first blog so I guess the title tells it all! Lets get things moving. My home, little country called Myanmar is not the best place to be starting a blog. Between the daily black outs and the ever disconnecting internet, this blog might not have been my brightest idea. But hey, if you're still reading I guess I'm doing an "Okay" job.

      So Postcards from Yangon is mostly going to be about food,eating, and more things relating to food. Odd name for a food blog I know, but what the heck. I'm a high school senior, aspiring to be a professional pastry chef the blog will be sorta like a way to get feedback and comments.

Oh! 

Just warning you, buttt...this blog is probably going to contain some dorky stuff about Lord of the rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, The Avengers(Geez, I could go on and on).

 Soooo yeahhh. I guess this is it for my first post, and thank you so much for reading till the end! I Promise there will be food, and baked goods ready for the next post :)
But if you didn't :( [frowny face for you]

Bye!
JM.