Tag Archives: nutella

Happy Birthday TT 2012

Dear TT,

Damn dude, I wished I had seen your face when you saw your birthday present this year! But hope it was just a big a surprise in your fridge when you came home considering how hard you must have worked during the day no? 😉

I thought about using Oreos yet again in your baking this year, I mean, honestly, you are the cookie monster exclusive to Oreos b]ut I also know how indulgent you are when it comes to chocolate. It is a good thing don’t worry 😉

So this year, I decided to bring the king of chocolate into your cooking. And I think this ingredient, being the king, really reflects your personality. I mean honestly, is there anything you do badly? Let me see, let us make a list:

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Birthday Post #2: A Guest Post At Cake Whiz

Ok, so you remember how, to celebrate with my family, I made an apple strudel which kicked butt (G rated blog ;)) because it had added caramel? Well, one of the reasons for this choice was actually because my family is not particularly fond of chocolate. Like I am 😉

So while we had fun, consumed vanilla ice cream at an alarming rate and enjoyed life to commemorate my 17th birthday, I also celebrated with my gorgeous, chocolate loving, chocolate obsessing, chocolate all buddies at school 😀

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June Foodie Pen Pals + A Perfect Cookie

I may be republishing a few old posts from the past (this being one of them), so please just ignore the notifications you will get via email) – sorry about that! If this message does not start the post, then consider it to be a new one 🙂


 

Update: Sorry if my blog looks a little weird but the side bar that is usually directly next to my posts is right at the bottom of my page including the subscribe area, the categories etc. It will NOT for some reason appear next to my blogs and looks awful so as I try to contact wordpress.com incessantly without starting forum and actually just emailing them, I’m sorry you will have to deal with it! If any of you can help, please do 😀

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I know it is a little late but voila,my package finally arrived so here is my June Foodie Pen Pals 😀 😀 – So exciting right?

Sorry, what is Foodie Pen Pals?

Foodie Pen Pals is a food exchange program started by the wonderful Lindsay @ The Lean Green Bean between both foodie bloggers and food lovers in the US and Canada. She has forever been extending this project, now including the UK and recently, doing special exchanges across the Southern Hemisphere 😀

I was allowed to try it for one month and I was absolutely thrilled. Shopping for and waiting for food? how could it possibly get better right?

The wonderful Natt over at In Need Of Natt got my name for this exchange and it was absolutely wonderful 😀
Living in South Korea, the home of sweet and cute, she sent me a parcel determined to break any diets and pacts I had with dry bread and water (which I actually never made ;))

So here goes – yes, there was a little translation problem but hey, she is vegan and understands my vegetarianism so I know everything is sweet and beautifully meat free! Of course, I cannot have tasted everything by now (actually I could but mum worries about cavities and stuff ;)), so here is my wonderful parcel unwrapped – thank you so so much Natt 😀

These were some totally awesome Korean version of Skittles – yum!
And cute packaging right>

Ummm… this one will be a surprise when I open it but I think there is some kind of chocolate involved and seeds because of the birds 😀
Or mini chocolate eggs? 😉

A plethora of lollipops 😀
Who can resist apple, strawberry, cola or what I would assume, bubblegum?

If you shake it, it rattles like popping candy 😉

Sunflowers seeds! I can totally read 😀 😀

These are like chocolate freckles but instead of hundreds and thousands, there are small pearl-like balls stuck on – cute right? 😀

And now we get into the chocolate load up – love you Natt, know me way too well 😀

Can’t go wrong, so smooth, silky and smooth 😀

These next 2 bars, I am pretty sure they are chocolate, one grape and one peanut 😀 – Cool combos right?

Thanks again Natt, it was brilliant and I am sure as I quickly slowly progress, I will enjoy every minute! And your note was so wonderful too!

Want to join Lindsay’s awesome global village foodie project? Visit this page to find out all the info and sign up soon 😀
I love making friends around the world, as corny as that sounds 😉

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As much as I am sure I overloaded you all with food, I simply HAD to share a cookie recipe I recently made up – its highly chocolatey, thin-nish and very addictive so if you are in the mood for nice and simple, leave (or stay and bookmark for another day :D)
Due to my lack of desserts, this is one filled with my favourite things – white chocolate, Nutella, hazelnuts, brown butter 😀
Making this for an outing with friends, it is only coincidence that they like these things too (why else are we friends ;))

They are so soft and so beautifully melt-in-mouth, you will never be able to stop at one (assured!)
Also just be a little weary… I may or may not have smudged the white chocolate chip while putting them on top of the cookies… oops 😉

Enjoy the recipe my friends!

Brown Butter Hazelnutella Chip Cookies

Recipe Inspiration: Love And Olive Oil

Makes: 24

Ingredients

  • 113g butter, salted
  • 6 tbs caster sugar
  • 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
  • 2/3 cup Nutella
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 1/2 tsp coffee essence
  • 1 cup plain flour
  • 1/2 cup hazelnut meal (ground hazelnuts)
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 cup mini white chocolate chips

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper
  2. Brown butter over medium heat until it is frothy and has a nutty smell to it. As soon as a brown colour, remove from heat and coll for 5 minutes
  3. Stir in both sugars
  4. Mix in Nutella spread (because the mixture is warm, it will melt the Nutella into batter)
  5. Beat in egg then both essences
  6. In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and hazelnut meal and whisk to combine
  7. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until the mixture is smooth and combined
  8. Using a tsp, drop dollops of dough onto the baking sheet, keep them 4-ish cm apart
  9. Slightly flatten them with a knife and bake for 6-7 minutes or until set
  10. While cooling on tray, quickly press in white chocolate chips on top, as many as desire per cookie
  11. Transfer to a cooling and rack and cooling completely
  12. Fill with extra Nutella, make ice cream sandwiches and eat away 🙂

See, see did I not tell you these would be addictive? Here are a few more shots to get you in the indulgent mood 😉
Work that cookie!

These cookies have been linked to Zesty South Indian Kitchen’s Favourite Recipes Event – so much fun and Swathi hosts a diffrent one each month! This month, obviously, it is cookies 😀

Oh, and before I forget, to all those in the US, Happy 4th of July, I am really enjoying all your festive posts 😀
And a belated Happy Canada Day to the maple syrup gurus!

Third Time Lucky For Mother’s Day 2012

We all get those days. Days where your toothpaste gets in your hair, where the hot water runs out just as your about to wash your waist-length hair and you miss the bus to school or work.

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It’s those days where we often need to depression eat, shop, cry – sometimes all three. But more often than not, just before delving into that hot fudge brownie sundae after maxing out three credit cards, someone will come up to you and take your hand. Someone will take you, sit you down in a plush chair and just look at you until your pour your heart out.

And then they will sympathise, tell you the truth, smile weirdly at you for worrying over anything so small and give you a hug, before giving you a piece of brownie.

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My Simply Nutella Saturday

Don’t tell me you have never done it before. Don’t go pushing your glasses up your nose and flicking an imaginary speck off your business suit. You are not making eye contact, just staring at your screen typing away, mouth set in a grim line while I accuse you. Don’t lie to me. I don’t know why you are lying to me. When everyone has done it before.

simply nutella 3
You look up at me sharply when I say that. You subtly look both directions before giving me a slight nod to continue. And I do.

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Happy Early Birthday JJ! (Traditions of March #3)

Dear JJ,

Hi 🙂

How you feeling? Older, wrinklier or wiser? No? Just 16 yrs? Not different? Good stuff.

So I hear you are going to have a great day tomorrow. Are you upset I posted early? I just wanted to send you to bed hungry 😀

JJ, I just want to say to HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

cheesecake 11Out of the 4 years I have now known you (a lifetime right?) we have gone through so much together *sniff* – netball tryouts at school, dancing, parties, formal, even ‘sleepovers’ where you look like me to certain people (:P) and our shunning because of loving pineapple lumps!

You make life so positive and upbeat dude – I am not kidding, with your older-sister attitude 😛
Though let me clarify, you are so totally younger than me 😉

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Combination Chocolate-y Celebrations

Warning: Before this post begins, please take into account that this post is extremely long, has two recipes involved and has an overdose of chocolate and photos

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Wow, it feels like such a long age since I last posted! Don’t be mad at me 😛 – After my last post which was delicious but healthy, sugarless and with a lack of chocolate, I knew my next post had to have a chocolate explosion – and what better way to do that I ask you than by doing a chocolate filled combination post??? 😀

64Willy Wonka: [hands Charlie a ladle full of chocolate] “Try some of this. It’ll do ya good. You looked starved to death!”

So where does the ‘celebration’ part of all this come into play? Well for one, my mummy is returning home after going overseas 😀
Finally, no more cleaning and dusting and cooking – jokes jokes (especially if you are reading this mum ;))

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Baking Impulsively Means Eating Compulsively

Everyone, get ready to gasp – what in the world is a senior student who has her university life hanging by a thread according to her studies at high school in her senior years doing posting on the first day of a school week? Shock, horror, the world is coming to an end – why, she should be hitting those maths text book which weigh heavier than a computer and bustling around researching haemoglobin or something as such.

Oops, oh well, I think I will survive since I am that senior in question 😉

41You may remember that a couple of weeks back I had a Nutella Baking Week. Good times right? Well, I mentioned that I would be unavailable for World Nutella Day and it was true, I was supposed to be but sometimes things happen and you come home one day too early (she is taking holidays too? For shame! :P) – this was the case with me and finishing all my homework happened first (I am not a complete female version of that rebel without a cause you know) and then even after driving, having time to whip up a little Nutella snack. Well, a snack I didn’t follow the recipe at all too 🙂 – Gotta love impulsive forgot-to-print-recipe cooking aye?

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First Ever Blog Award + First Post Since School

Hello and so nice to be back on again, though admittedly I have only not posted for 3 days – seems like an eternity for me 😛
Well I come back with very good news for you from all around + a very easy, quick and ultimately delicious recipe which you will wonder why you never tried before – trust me 😉

61. I am loving school – senior years = doing the subjects you want and although the workload is already quite intense, I am enjoying my histories very much thank you 😀
And it was absolutely awesome to see my friends again after the summer, all ready and excited and a little hyper!

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Nutella Baking Week Finale: Nutella Crème Brulee

Alack and alas, all good things must come to an end. And as far as good things go, this week has to be absolutely one of the best. Like the chocolate chip cookie dough baking week started at the beginning of my summer holidays (can you believe I only have 1 week – ONE week!!!), this week has shown me that Nutella is really better than just in a toasted sandwich or on toast.

The variety with which one can eat this spread is astounding, and once more, we thank the Italians for introducing us to yet another fabulous food to tingle our tastebuds.
But fun fact: Pizza was originally from Greece, just a baked piece of stale bread with olive oil and herbs on it for the working class. When Queen Margherita of Italy came to Greece, she liked the taste so much that the original Margherita pizza was made for her and she took it back to Italy, who have forever increased the range since 😀

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