Cocoa+Milo Cake and Nutella rolls

This year's eid has been a rather lazy one for me. I didn't bake much but just made what I think my kids and visitors would like :-) I made these in the first week of Eid for my guests. If you notice, most of my bakes are vanilla or chocolate flavoured. My kids are not into colorful bakes, maybe they got intimated by the colours *lol* Anyways, I will update the recipe later :)

Oven-baked Naans

These are really great naans, chewy and soft even when they are not hot. I made this after reading so many great reviews about it. The suggested method is to cook it over the stove but instead, I used the baking/pizza stone and have it baked in the oven. If you don't have you can use a baking tray. Please check that your oven has a top grille otherwise you might risk overbaking it and will end up with hard naans.

I have also included the link to the youtube videos for your reference. If you notice, this recipe doesn't use yogurt so it is not as tangy as the ones with yogurt.

Naan

Source: Cooking for All Seasons

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tsp instant yeast
1 1/2 cup warm milk
1 tsp sugar

Butter for brushing on hot naans (optional)

Method:

1. Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the milk, let rest approximately 10 minutes till it turns frothy
2. In a large bowl, mix well the flour with the yeast/milk mixture then mix in the salt

3. Knead until soft and elastic

4. Cover with a damp towel and leave in a dark place to rise until doubled, about two hours
5. Remove the dough from the bowl, punch it out gently then divide into ten even balls
6. Roll out into triangles, dusting lightly with flour as needed

7. Preheat oven to the highest temperature your oven can take, mine is about 220C with the pizza stone in the oven for 30mins

8. Place the tray and the pizza stone close to the top grill of your oven without burning the naan during baking

9. Once it is ready, place the naans on the pizza stone and let it puff, take it out once the top puffs up and has brown spots
10. Brush it with butter once it is out of the oven and keep them warm

Here are the links for your reference:

Over the stove method: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBFOpcIkPZQ&feature=related

Oven with baking stone method which I used: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkiN7fQbHiA&feature=player_embedded

Vanilla Cupcakes for Children's Day party

My youngest daughter's school had a Children's Day celebration last Friday and the school was asking for some food contribution for the party. Since my kids love cake, I decided to make vanilla+chocolate chip cupcakes with buttercream frosting. A simple one without any swirls or anything fancy. Actually it was my decision to forgo the swirls as it will be too messy for the kids :) To make it cute, I topped it with strawberry chocolate shavings and tiny chocolate balls that comes in white, milk and dark chocolate :)

The vanilla cupcakes, I used my favourite recipe by Magnolia Bakery. I got it off the internet many years back and I can't remember the site *lol* Anyways, here it is, I added chocolate chips to it.

Recipe:

Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes

Recipe from More From Magnolia by Allysa Torey

1 C unsalted butter, softened (1 cup is about 227g)

2 cups granulated sugar (I used slightly less than 2 cups)

4 large eggs

1 1/2 C self rising flour

1 1/4 C all-purpose flour

1 C milk

1 tsp vanilla extract/essence

1 C chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170C degrees

2. Sift flours into a bowl and set aside

3. Cream the butter until smooth on medium speed, ad the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy

4. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition

5. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla

6. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated but do not overbeat

7. Scrap down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended

8. Add chocolate chips and slowly mix it into the batter

9. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about three-quarters full

10.Bake for 20–25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean

11.Cool cupcakes before frosting