Corn Biscuit

Another Saturday afternoon to entertain Annabelle. Instead of feeling guilty about ignoring her, I decided to round her and her little friend, lin, up to teach them how to bake, and entertain myself at the same time 🙂  They each got their own mixing bowl, measuring cups, rollers and other necessities and do the measuring and mixing independently.  With no eggs at home, there is really not much choices but to make biscuit.

I’ve always longed for those cheddar biscuit from Red Lobster so I searched for a recipe that appeared promising. Turns out that we ran out of cheese too, so we had to turn it into a corn one..

Annabelle and Lin are 5 and 6 respectively so I was not sure what my expectation should be. To my surprise, they can remember the ingredients really well. (I know this because I quizzed them :=) Of course, the kitchen looked like being robbed at the end with flour flying freely. But, the girls had a great time and they loved the flaky biscuit that they made themselves!

Lin’s baking

 

Annabelle’s

 

Ingredients:

Flour 1 cup

Corn flour 1 cup

Milk Powder 1/2 cup

Cold Butter 2 sticks

Baking Powder 3 tsp

salt   1 tsp

Sugar 1/3 cup

Cold milk 1 cup

 

How to:

Mix all the dry ingredients together and then add in the butter (cut into small cubes). Work the butter in until they turned into bean size pieces and incorporated well with the flour. Add in the cold milk, gently form it into a dough. Use a scoop to measure and place each piece onto the baking sheet or cut them into shapes. Bake in 400F degree oven for 15 minutes.

Another Apple Tart

I am a baklava-holic. To me, it is the best dessert in the whole world. As I was trying to make it to satisfy my sweet urge, I still can’t help doing something a little bit different. So instead of all nuts, I cut up some Fuji apple into tiny cutes and sauté them with butter and brown sugar. Then layered the apples on the bottom of a square filo crust and added toasted walnuts on top to bake it into an apple tart. It is sweet and fruity, a good variation of baklava.

Autumn in a Bowl

I received a small bag of pears from work that were harvested from a home garden and was asked to make desserts using these. These are tiny pears that are absolutely cute. I wanted to do sometime different and easy. So I thought I could make a pear panna cotta with a cinnamon shortbread cookie. I call it “Autumn in a Bowl” because the refreshing taste of pear and warmth coming from the hint of cinnamon definitely reminds me of the Fall.   I think they came out really good but we will see how folks react tomorrow after the tasting.

Here is how to make the pear panna cotta.

Ingredients

Pear 3  (any kind, I usually use d’Anjou)

Half and Half 2 cups

Unflavored gelatin mix 1 bag

Dry white wine 1 cup

Sugar 1/2 cup +1/4 cup (or more if you like it sweeter)

Vanilla bean 1/2 piece

How to

Cut the pears to small pieces and cook them in the dry white wine with 1/2 cup of sugar for 30 minutes. Puree them in a blender. Soften the gelatin with 1/4 cup of half and half and set aside. Meanwhile, heat up the remaining half and half in a medium sauce pan with 1/4 cup of sugar and scraped seeds from the vanilla bean until it simmers and then add in the gelatin. Mix it well and remove from heat. when it cool down slightly, add in the pear puree, mix well. Pour the mixture to small bowls and fridge overtime before serving with cinnamon cookies.