Valentine's Day? No man! Its My Cookies Day!

February is the special month for those lovers because there's a valentines day on this month. Well, honestly i never celebrate this kind of event particularly. Me and my besties claimed that February 14th is the chocolate day not the 'valentines day' because we can easily find chocolate everywhere every February. 

Talking about chocolate, it always become the standart present to express someone's feeling. But actualy there are a bunch of things that can represent it beside chocolate. I read on the valentines cook book that cupcakes and petit four are the good ideas. But, have you ever watched Japanese of Korean drama? Well based on the serial dramas that i ever watched, the girl made a sweet cookies for someone they love just like in 'Hana Yori Dango' (Japanese version) or 'Boys Before Flowers' (Korean version). The girl shaped the cookies like her love's face. Or even just a good shaped cookies. I ever tried to make a face-shaped cookies like in drama. Not that good but at least i made it with all my heart :P Look out below! Those are the first face-shaped cookies that i made 2 years ago! 

Since i did not celebrate the V day, i rarely make cookies on February, but i make it every Eid Mubaraq. There's a tradition to give the cookies for all the people who visit our house or just as a present for someone we love. I sometimes make the cookies as the present for my little cozins and grandma :D They said they loved the shape :D haha..

Here my simple recipe for the cute cookies!

WHAT YOU NEEDS?

- 175gr margarine (butter is better)
- 100gr caster sugar
- 250gr flour
- 100gr cornstarch
- half tea spoon of vanilla
- 1 egg

Sugar Icing:

- 250gr caster sugar
- 1 egg (we use only the white)
- lil bit of lemon juice
- food coloring

mix evenly sugar, white egg, and lemon juice. then add the food colors. Mix well and put it on the plastick pipe.

HOW TO MAKE?

- beat well the butter and caster sugar.
- add the egg and vanila. Mix well.
- add the flour and cornstarch. Stir evenly with the wooden spoon.
- roll the dough (the thickness is approximately half centimeter)
- shape the dough with many kind of cookies molds then put it in the baking pan that has been coated with margarine.
- bake in the oven for 8-12 minutes in the 200 degrees heat. (or until it well bake! please check your cookies  in the oven carefully)
- after it well cook, its time for decorate your cookies with icing sugar :D
- DONE!!

Aha~ look what i just created! I am not a good decorator so it look like a kid huh? haha but thats okay, as i told u, my lil cozins love to eat it :D You should make a better one if you willing to give your cute cookies to your darling :D hehey~ Dont forget to wrap it with a cute wrapping paper and slip a lovely V day card! (or just like what i did with my besties, change the v day with chocolate day or cookies day) ahahha~ Well if u have any question or if my recipe is not realy clear please dont hesitate to give comments or email me at norulescooking@gmail.com. I will answer it soon :D thankies a bunch for reading!
HAPPY COOKIES DAY!

Pound Cake for Afternoon Tea

Yeah, another Saturday and i feel so tired this week because of my internship period on Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Got a lots of jobs and traffic jam made me absolutely need to pamper my self with a delicious cake :D haha.. Well actually i can find lotsa bakery shop near my office but there's a differences when i make a cake by my self, its like a pleasure :D So, i grabbed the cakes cook book and find a good and simple recipe. Here my choice goes to Pound cake. Its easy and delicious because it only need butter and egg and the comparison of the ingredients is 1:1 so its easy for me to remember :D It also made without baking powder, let the egg white do it for this cake.. yea~ 

WHAT YOU NEEDS ARE:

- 125gr butter

- 125gr sugar

- 125gr flour (don't forget to sifted it, because i forgot :P haha)

- 2 eggs (separate the yolks from the whites, and whites stiffly beaten) 

HOW TO MAKE?

- Cream the butter, add the sugar and cream well together.
- Add the egg yolks, one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in the flour. Fold in the beaten egg whites.
- Pour the mixture into a prepared loaf tin.
- Bake in an oven preheated to 180 degrees celcius for about 45 minutes (or until the cake shrinks slightly from the side of the pan.
- The top of the cake will crack due to internal steam pressure. Based from the book you have to allow the cake to cool completely in the tin and keep it for 24 hours before slicing it. But, i didn't. 24 hours is just too long for me, i couldn't wait to eat it haha, so i just ate it when its ready :D yoom meeh!

I served it with twinings traditional afternoon tea. Its taste so creamy and its perfect to serve in the afternoon while u waiting the sunset haha :P Well, a good one to be try! simple and yoom meeh :D keep on cooking! Happy weekend! 

I love chocolate, I love Molten Choco Cake!

Chocolate! I bet you guys especially girls love to eat it! Yea this kind of sweet is a very good one to heal the bad mood, even to relieve the stress. I remembered when my teacher asked me to brought a lots of chocolate bars on the high school trip (Jakarta-Yogjakarta) to kept me feel happy. I am an easily-get-bored type one, so for me chocolate can heal me. Not for 100% but maybe 25-40% (abstract percentages LOL).

Well, I love the variety of cakes and other snacks made out of chocolates like brownies, cupcakes, chocochips cookies (i love betty crocker one :P), Sacher Torte (my mom's made is yoom, maybe i will put the recipe later) and so on. I also love to make praline-wannabe ( aha actually i just melt the cooking chocolate blocks and mold it in lots of shapes). LOL!

So, Right now i wanna share the experienced of amateur chefs. Me and my cousin tried to make a good sweet snacks from chocolate and our choice when to Molten choco cake. I actually very often saw the junior masterchef Aussie kids made this kind of dessert. So we want to tried it (but i am sure those kids are better than me haha)

We asked google for the recipe (coz we are a bit lazy to find the recipes from the cookbooks) and we found lotsa recipes! Different recipes has a different technique. Thanks God there's someone who have a good and simple one! We doubled the recipes coz we need lotsa cakes to eat haha!

YOU MUST PREPARE:

- 150gr butter (we used Elle&Vire unsalted butter)
- 130gr dark chocolate
- 4 eggs
- 80gr sugar
- 160cc milk
- 40gr chocolate powder
- Vanila ice cream
- fresh cherries

HOW TO MAKE?

- melt the dark chocolate and butter.
- mix sugar and eggs, beat with a whisker. Slowly add the milk then put the melted choco and butter.
- add the kokoa powder, stir well.
-  pour batter into a small round mold (or cupcakes mold) that has been spread with the butter.
- bake for 11 minutes in 200 degrees celcius. (please carefully set the time, it should be 11 minutes, coz i added another 5 minutes and the cake look overcook :P haha)

How does it looks? Yoom meeh? Yes! I agree its yoom meeh :D haha even though the 'look' is not realy good, coz we oven it too long haha :P but still its good. Perfect stuff for a cool afternoon :D or when you are in you bad mood :) Well thats all i wanna share to you guys! Happy cooking :D

My first Ratatouille

Hello~ I am back :D Too much stuffs to do so i don't have any time to write in here. Well I actually got a lots of stories to share but lemme share you the newest one!

Last week I went to @America in Pacific Place, Jakarta to celebrated its first anniversary. I got an invitation that Chef Tatang would share some of his American Recipes so me and Amanda (my 'masterchef' parner in crime) went there together :D 

The menu of the day was Ratatouille (its remind me about Ratatouille movie from Disney, i bet you guys do the same :P) . I read on wikipedia, ratatouille mean toss food. Well i never eat it and make it before, so I felt so exited! But I was a bit confused because all i knew, this food is come from France not America. But thats okay, there's no wrong to learn about a new thing right? 

Chef Tatang is a celebrity chef that popular in some of culinary shows on television and it was a great chance to met him personally. His body is so big and tall so that i couldn't balance my body height with his kitchen table (I did join to the stage to helped him to chopped some stuffs). I found my pics from @america Flickr and Video also. Please kindly watch it when u have the time :P hehe.

Video Link: American Cooking with Chef Tatang

He started the first recipe called "U.S Lattice Cuts with Red Tuna and Micro Ratatouille" (as i mentioned above). Here i gave you the recipe!

Ingredients:

- 12 pieces of lattice cuts potatoes (or just a flat potato is fine i guess)

- 6 Tuna fillets

- 1 red beet root

- 50 ml red wine vinegar

- 100gr zucchini, dice in small pieces (brunoise)

- 100gr onion, brunoise

- 100gr eggplant, brunoise

- 100gr olives, brunoise

- 100gr tomatoes, deseeded, brunoise

- 1 avocado

- 1 lemon for lemon juice

- 1 teaspoon of wasabi (i asked to changed wasabi with chilli powder, and he said its fine, but wasabi is good to strengthen the color and make it look better)

- 1 teaspoon of tabasco

- 200ml olive oil

HOW TO MAKE IT?

- slice each tuna into 6 pieces (so it will be 36 pieces).

- mixed the red beet juice with red wine vinegar, marinate the tuna for 40 minutes.

- heat the pan and add 50ml olive oil. Quickly saute the zucchini. (do the same for onion, eggplant, and tomatoes)

- mixed all the sauted veggies (zucchini, onion, eggplant, and tomatoes) with the pieces of black olives, set aside.

- grill the lattice cuts potatoes for 10 minutes in 225 degrees celcius.

- blend the avocado, lemon juice, tabasco, and wasabi till become the puree.

- lift the tuna from the marinated juice, drain it.

- to serve it: stack two teaspoon of avocado puree on the grilled potato, then put 2 pieces of tuna and the vegies (ratatouille)

Yoom meeh? Yeah it look soo yoo meeh right? But honestly, i didn't realy like this food, maybe because its a new one for me, and maybe the second trial will make my tongue familiar with this kind of taste :D

Right? But its a good food though, veggies, tuna, puree are a good stuffs. Actually there is another recipe from Chef Tatang, but maybe later i will post it in here :D Keep on cooking :D chops chops :D