Strawberry buttermilk scones

My 2nd attempt at making scones wasn't as delicious as the first's! (You can read the 1st attempt here)

As NTUC was having offers for strawberries at S$3.55 per punnet, I decided to try making strawberry scones! However, as there's juices in the strawberries, the end product for both strawberry scones attempt wasn't what I was looking for. It was dry and crumbly in the middle and I couldn't really taste much of the strawberries.

The recipe that I used was exactly the same as the first's, the only 2 additions I added were half a teaspoon of baking powder and 3 pieces of chopped strawberries (because this recipe calls for 5 scones)

Also, I think that as I'm using fresh strawberries rather than dried ones, the moisture content in them caused the dough to be unable to rise up and crack well!

Ingredients:

• 200g self raising flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 50g cold butter
• 150g buttermilk (I used Meiji low fat milk + 2 tbsp lemon juice & let it stand for 30mins)
• 4 pieces of strawberries, chopped 

Steps:

• preheat oven to 220 deg celsius
• Sift flour 3x
• combine all dry ingredients in a bowl and manually whisk it to combine
• add cold butter (straight from the fridge and cut into cubes) and use fingers to combine all together until it looks like bread crumbs
• create a well in the middle and add milk (careful not to add too much like I did!) 
• use a spatula to combine all ingredients together until it becomes thick and sticky
• transfer to lightly floured tabletop and lightly knead (i've read from various blogs that we shouldn't knead too much as it may cause the scones to toughen.)
• use a cookie cutter and transfer the scones to place them beside each other onto baking tray lined with parchment paper.
• bake @ 220deg celsius for 15-20mins 
• transfer onto wire tray to cool
• serve warm with jam/butter any seasoning of choice

Buttermilk scones

Whenever I dine at Popeyes, I seldom eat the biscuit (which I later knew from BunnyBoi) that they're actually called "scones". He would always say that they're nice and it's his favourite, hence I've decided to try my hands on it!

I adapted the recipe from: http://www.nofrillsrecipes.com/2012/07/buttermilk-scones.html?m=1 and I like that the recipe makes out 5 instead of a dozen like other recipes do.

Ingredients:

• 200g self raising flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 50g cold butter
• 150g buttermilk (I used Meiji low fat milk + 2 tbsp lemon juice & let it stand for 30mins)

Steps:

• preheat oven to 220 deg celsius
• Sift flour 3x
• combine all dry ingredients in a bowl and manually whisk it to combine
• add cold butter (straight from the fridge and cut into cubes) and use fingers to combine all together until it looks like bread crumbs
• create a well in the middle and add milk (careful not to add too much like I did!) 
• use a spatula to combine all ingredients together until it becomes thick and sticky
• transfer to lightly floured tabletop and lightly knead (i've read from various blogs that we shouldn't knead too much as it may cause the scones to toughen.)
• use a cookie cutter and transfer the scones to place them beside each other onto baking tray lined with parchment paper.
• bake @ 220deg celsius for 15-20mins (however for mine, i don't know why it took me close to 60mins for the browning on top to surface!)
• transfer onto wire tray to cool
• serve warm with jam/butter any seasoning of choice

Unfortunately, I've added too much milk onto the batter and it turned out quite gooey, hence I've to keep adding more flour for the texture to be right before lightly kneading them into a dough to be cut out using a cup. 

Another thing to note was maybe the circumference of my cup was too big? Instead of 5 pieces I managed to cut 3, & it took about an hour for the scones to brown at the top. 

I was about to think that "this is yet another failed attempt" when......

TAAAADAAAAA!!!

I'm so so happy! Thank you @nofrillsrecipe for this wonderful recipe! :)

Home cooked with love

BunnyBoi came over yesterday and we had oven roasted salmon & asparagus for lunch! :))

I'd wanted to do a crispy skin but soft meat but the skin was burnt really badly as the flame we used was too hot and too much oil was used for this dish. 

Overall I love love baked salmon and I'm glad that BunnyBoi enjoyed this meal we both prepared together. We'll cut down on the oil in future! 

Next, we both successfully baked a chocolate ganache cake for our first attempt!! 

I got the recipe from joyofbaking.com and it's really a "mix-in-the-pan-cake". 

I altered the recipe to my own preference as her recipe is really toooooo sweet.

Ingredients include: 

- 195g all purpose flour

- 50g caster sugar

- 25g unsweetened cocoa powder

- 1 teaspoon baking powder

- 1 teaspoon baking soda 

- pinch of salt 

- 240ml warm water 

- half a lemon, squeezed

- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence 

All we did was to add the ingredients listed 1 by one and then manually whisk it! 

By the time it was of a consistent texture, we lined the cake pan with butter and flour, and pour the mixture in!

Oh and before that we had to preheat the oven to 180deg Celsius and placed the cake pan in the centre of the oven for 35 minutes. The toothpick inserted in the centre came out totally clean!!! 

Due to time constraints, we cooled the cake at room temperature for 30mins, and proceeded on with our chocolate ganache frosting.

Chocolate ganache ingredients:

- 1 whole bar of Van... Baking chocolate 

- 1/3 of Bulla thickened cream

- 1 tablespoon room temperature butter 

Melt the ingredients over a double boiler and adjust thickened cream to your liking. 

Once time's up, pour chocolate onto cake and freeze for 30mins. (We later learned from BunnyBoi's mum that it can be cooled in the normal fridge section to harden)

And..... Viola!!

I've always wanted to bake with my boyfriend and I'm so so glad that it's you that I'm doing it with. I'm looking forward to many more cookings and bakings with you honey. I love you. <3