Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Nastar and the history of it



I have written about this cookie "Nastar" on October 13 2010 but there was no recipe until today ;) well i hate keeping secret in all my recipes...thats why i create this blog :)

Nastar itself is originally hereditary recipe from Dutch colony in Indonesia. Mostly people dont know about this....so i am going to tell a bit about history of NASTAR :) . This cookie made during dutch colony in Indonesia. Indonesian called it as Nastar as the main ingredient of this cookie is ananas (means pineapple in Dutch) or nanas (means pineapple in Indonesian language). And the word "Tar" came from word "Tart" which means cake or kue in Indonesian language. The word Kue is usually used for all kind of baking products. So they call it as NASTAR (ananas tart) means kue nanas or if we translate to English it means Pineapple cookie.

Hope this recipe can help all my readers in making a yummmyyyyyy Nastar ;)
Happy baking all!

Ingredients:

150g butter

100g margarine

50g Confectioners' sugar
2 egg yolks
300g all purpose flour

50g milk powder

Pineapple jam for filling

3egg yolks for egg glaze


How to make:


1. Blend butter, margarine and confectioner's sugar for about 2 minutes with electronic hand mixer.
2. Add in egg yolk one at a time, and beat until fluffy for about 3minutes.
3. Mix in flour and milk powder little by little, mix till become a firm and non-stick dough, mix it well with rubber/wooded spatula until become dough.

4. Weight the dough for about 8gram each and shape it round, make a hole in the middle. Place the pineapple jam filling into the hole and brush with egg-glaze.

5. Bake in preheated oven at 180C for about 20minutes or until golden brown.

6. Cool on wire racks before storing.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Baking Tips


10 Tips to Help You Bake the Perfect Cookie

Baking cookies is a great treat for children and adults. I've put together a few tips to help make sure your cookies bake perfectly each and every time you make them. I wish you success with each sheet of cookies you bake!

1. Use shiny cookie sheets.

You could even cover dark cookie sheets with aluminum foil. The reflective quality of the pan insures even baking and browning of your cookies. With the right cookie sheet, you will produce perfectly browned cookies each time you bake.

2. Use a spoon or other measuring device to measure out drop cookies.

Making sure your cookie dough is evenly divided is essential. Your cookies will bake more evenly during their cooking time. If your cookies are different sizes, they will require different cooking times. You will end up with some underdone and some overdone cookies. We definitely wouldn't want that to happen!

3. Chill dough thoroughly if you are rolling out cookies.

By making sure that the dough has been chilled completely, the dough will be much easier to work with during rolling and cutting.

4. Monitor the baking time of you cookies closely.

Remove your cookies from the oven when they still look a little underdone in their centers. They will finish cooking on the cookie sheets.

5. Use the correct fat for your cookies.

If the recipe calls for butter, use butter. Butter happens to be my personal favorite for baking cookies! I never use margarine. If the recipe calls for shortening, I will use butter flavored. Butter and shortening provide the bonding fate that keeps our cookies from spreading too thin while cooking. If you use margarine when it calls for butter, your cookies may be thinner and may cook too quickly for optimum taste benefits.

6. Rotate your cookies halfway through the baking time.

Often ovens cook faster towards the rear of the oven. Rotating the cookies insures even baking of your wonderful treats. If you are cooking more than one sheet of cookies at a time, make sure you switch top and bottom sheets halfway through baking time also.

7. Always use large eggs.

This is the standard size egg used for developing cookie recipes. Your cookies will mix perfectly by using the correct size eggs.

8. Measure all of your ingredients carefully.

Don't use heaping cups of flour or sugar. Make sure you use a flat surface to level all dry measured ingredients. Measure your liquid ingredients carefully also or else you might end up with very dry or very runny cookie dough.

9. Preheat your oven to the correct temperature.

Do this before you place your cookies in the oven. This will make sure your cookies will cook properly to become the perfect cookies!

10. Have Fun!

Baking cookies is a wonderful tradition in homes today. Have fun while you are making them, and the smiles will be even bigger when you eat them! Having fun and smiling makes everything taste better!



source: popularcookierecipes.com

Friday, January 7, 2011

Javanese Almond Layer Cake/ Kue Balapis Kenari


Ingredients

10 pandanus leaves*, sliced
20 suji leaves*, sliced
100ml water
500g multi purpose flour
445g granulated sugar
1/2tsp salt
1700ml coconut-milk
50g cocoa powder
200g Javanese almond, minced well
vegetable oil for spreading

How To Make
1. Put pandanus leaves and suji leaves into a blender and blend them until delicate, then squeeze and strain the water. Take about 120ml or so. Keep a side.
2. Mix multi-purpose flour+granulated sugar+salt in a medium bowl, then pour in 1600ml coconut-milk little by little while keep mixing them until they become soft. Dissolve cocoa powder with remaining coconut-milk, mix it well.
3. Split the dough into two part. Pour pandanus-suji water mix into one part and mix them well until it turns in to green color. Pour cocoa powder mix into the other part, mix well until it becomes chocolate color.
4. Pour about 200ml of green dough, leave it for about 5minutes then pour another 200ml of chocolate dough above the green dough, spread Javanese-almond on top of the chocolate dough, leave it about 5 minutes. Repeat the above process until the dough mix are over.
5. steam again the whole cake for about 30minutes.
6. Take it out of steamer, let it cool on the baking pan itself, then cut it into slices and serve it nicely. Make sure the cake is cold before u cut.

*could be substituted with green coloring food paste.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Indian Vegetable Samosa (Pastel)




Ingredients:



For Cover:
1 cup all purpose flour (Maida)
Water to Knead dough
2tbsp oil
Little salt
1/4th tsp. Ajwain (optional)
For Stuffing:

3-4 Potatoes (boiled, peeled & mashed)
1/2 cup Green Peas (boiled)
1-2 Green Chilies (finely chopped)
1/2tsp Ginger (crushed)
1tbsp coriander finely chopped
Few chopped Cashews (optional)
Few Raisins (optional)
1/2tsp Garam masala
Salt to taste
Red chili powder to taste
1/2 tsp. Dry Mango powder( Amchur) (optional)

How to make samosa:

For Cover:
  • Mix all the ingredients (salt, oil, ajwain) except water.
  • Add a little water at a time.
  • Pat and knead well for several times into a soft pliable dough.
  • Cover it with moist Muslin cloth and keep aside for 15 minutes.
For Stuffing :
  • In a bowl add mashed potatoes and all dry masalas (salt, chili powder, mango powder, garam masala) and green chilles, ginger and Mix well.
  • Add green peas, cashews and raisins and mix well.
  • Add coriander and keep aside.
To Proceed :
  • Make small rolls of dough and roll it into a 4"-5" diameter circle.
  • Cut it into two parts like semi-circle.
  • Now take one semi circle and fold it like a cone. Use water while doing so.
  • Place a spoon of filling in the cone and seal the third side using a drop of water.
  • Heat oil in a kadhai and deep fry till golden brown (fry on a medium flame).
  • Serve samosa hot with hari chutney, tamarind chutney.


recipe and photo by indianfoodforever