Double Chocolate Fudge and Oreo Brownies

To continue with the Christmas theme, this is a decadent dessert that I concocted all by my lonesome - a hodgepodge of trial and error. I saw photographs of brownies while I was surfing through Tumblr several years ago with broken pieces of oreo cookies in them and I thought 'Why not a layer of the cookies?'

This Christmas I spent it with my friends Efi and her family over at her place. This was my contribution. This has always been my go-to dessert for when I want to impress and also indulge in my chocolate cravings. Give it a try, and hope you enjoy it as much as my family and friends do!

Ingredients:

250g of butter
100g of milk chocolate
100g of dark chocolate

80g of cocoa powder
65g of flour, sifted
1 tsp of baking powder
300g of caster sugar
60g of brown sugar

4 large eggs, beaten
1 tsp of vanilla extract

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. In a bain marie, melt the butter and chocolates together until its soft and gooey, like below.

2. In a large bowl, sift the flour and cocoa powder together. Add in the baking powder and sugars and mix thoroughly.

3. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together.

4. Gradually add the beaten egg into the mixture, and mix thoroughly.

5. Now that the batter is ready, in your chosen brownie pan, make a thin bottom layer with the batter.

6. Arrange the oreo cookies randomly in the layer of batter. Cover with the leftover batter. Make as many layers as you want (depends on the size of your pan).

7. Bake at 180 degrees C for 25-30 minutes. To test if the brownie is cooked, insert a skewer or toothpick and if it comes out rather clean, its cooked. It will be slightly gooey.

8. Serve it warm, with ice cream!

Christmas Homemade Gifts: Mulled Wine Spices

Its going to be Christmas time soon! And my dear friends Lydia and Eleni thought about making personal and homemade gifts for our friends this year. What can be more Christmas-y than spices?

The babes, Lydia and Eleni. With the mulled wine spice mix!

We went downtown to Evripidou, to the famous spice shops, and bought a lot of spices: allspice, cinnamon, cardomom, cloves, nutmeg and crystallized ginger, among others. We also bought empty teabags, so we could fill them with the spices.

Spices galore!

We spent 2 weekends bashing and packaging the spices into mixes over at Lydia's place. We made a Mulled Wine mix, and a Chai Latte mix. 

Bashing nutmeg

Of course the cinnamon and the nutmeg needed a bit of bashing into smaller pieces. You can use a mortar and pestle, or put them in a freezer bag and use a rolling pin and beat the bag until the spices are broken.

Crystallized Ginger

The ginger also needs to be chopped into smaller pieces. This may a bit time consuming, but with friends and chatter, time flew by and we had chopped ginger ready to be mixed.

Mulled Wine Spices Mix

Ingredients & supplies: (makes 20-25 bags)

100g of cinnamon sticks

5 nutmegs

200g of cloves

200g of allspice

100g of crystallized ginger

Peel from 3 oranges, dried in the oven

Peel from 3 lemons, dried in the oven

Empty teabags

Cooking twine

1. Mix the ingredients together in a big bowl.
2. Fill the teabags with 2 heaped tablespoons of the spice mix. Tie with the cooking twine.
3. Package in small plastic bags (optional), and its all ready for you to gift them to your friends and family! Don't forget to include the instructions(below) with your gift.

Instructions: How to make mulled wine
Combine 1/3 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of water in a big pot. Simmer on medium heat. Once the sugar has dissolved, add 1 bottle of red wine and 1 bag of spice mix. Simmer gently on low heat until the wine is hot. Remove and discard the bag, before serving. Best to serve hot!

Mulled wine gift bags

How I made mine at home:

I added a few extra pieces of fresh orange peel when I made the wine, as a taste test. I liked it more orange-y, but George didn't. The result was a rather fruity and Sangria-like mulled wine. If you like Sangria, add more orange peel. If you don't, just stick to the normal spice mix.

Pah's Rendang Tok

Its been a rainy winter week, and winter time is the best time to cook dishes that takes ages to make - I can be in the kitchen where it is warm, and this rendang is very well suited to cold weather too. With a bowl of pilaf rice or a plate of nasi lemak, this dish is great.

Rendang Tok is unlike any other sort of rendang you may find out there. Its a traditional rendang dish from the state of Perak in Malaysia, and its the state my grandmother, Pah, is from. Its sauce is also very much drier in texture than usual. According to Pah, Rendang Tok is an extravagant and rich dish that is made to last longer than the usual rendang, with the addition of palm sugar and rich spices.

I used a stewing beef cut here, because the hours of cooking will make the meat very soft. Ask your butcher for recommendations. 

It does require a lot of preparation and a lot of care while cooking, but the result is worth all the effort. You can use a blender to make a paste of the onions, lemongrass, garlic, galangal and ginger, but I am keen to follow my grandmother's advice - slice the ingredients by hand.

I also roasted and ground the spices in the pestle and mortar. If you have the spices ready ground, that is not a problem. I am quite lucky that I have a few pieces of fresh turmeric root with me. If you can't find fresh turmeric root, use 1 tsp of turmeric powder.

Ingredients: (serves 4-6)

1kg of stewing beef, diced

Marinade

3 tbsps of coriander

2 tbsps of fennel

1 tbsp of cumin

1 tbsp of black pepper

Marinade spices, before roasting

Marinade spices, after roasting and ground to powder.

3 tbsps of palm sugar/coconut sugar, grated

1 thumb sized piece of tamarind soaked in some water, drained of the seeds and bits (just the liquid).

1/2 thumb sized piece of fresh turmeric, pulped into a paste with some chilli. (or 1 tsp of turmeric powder)

1 tbsp of chilli powder

2-3 tbsps of sambal paste (or according to taste)

2 tsps of salt

Paste (for expediency, blend)

2 onions, sliced thinly

4 shallots, sliced thinly

4 cloves of garlic, chopped fine

7 lemongrass, sliced thinly

1 thumb sized piece of galangal, chopped fine

2 thumb sized pieces of ginger, sliced thinly

Other Ingredients:

5 pieces of cardamom
5 pieces of cloves
1 cinnamon stick

4-5 tbsps of kerisik

2 cans of coconut milk

2 tbsps of cooking oil

Preparation:

1. Marinade the beef in the marinade ingredients. Mix well and let rest for 2-3 hours.

2. In big pot ( I am using a wok here, or a kuali in Malay), heat the oil. Saute the paste ingredients until fragrant.

3. Add the marinated beef chunks and stir to mix thorougly.

4. Add the coconut milk, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon stick and the kerisik. Stir to mix thoroughly.

5. Bring mixture to a boil, and reduce the heat to low. Cover and simmer gently for 2 hours or until the meat is tender. I had it covered for the first hour, and had it uncovered for the 2nd. Take care to stir the rendang once in a while to prevent sticking/burning at the bottom of the wok. 

6. You will notice that the liquid is slowly evaporating. Keep stirring and once the texture has turned 'dry', like below,

7. Serve with rice, or nasi lemak. 

8. Note: To prevent grumpy husbands from going 'blech' when he accidentally bites into a piece of cardamom or clove, when the ingredients are 'dry' as pictured above, it is easier to notice and pick out the spices before serving.