B&W Wednesday - Week 53

Black and white Wednesday is weekly culinary photo challenge initiated by Susan from the Well  Seasoned Cook and hosted this week Cinzia of Cindystar.

Here's a B&W rendition of the ingredients used for my banana porridge post.  Pearl barley, pitted dried dates, rice flakes and a banana.

B&W Wednesday - Week 50

I am back to joining Black and White Wednesday, initiated by Susan from The Well Seasoned Cook but have passed around hosting privileges to other food bloggers around the globe.  For Week 50, Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything is the host. So if you're interested to join this weekly monochromatic food photography challenge, check out Susan's page or Haalo's for updates.

This is a black and white version of my panna cotta with ruby sauce.  A new favourite at our home.  I'm trying other infusions in the cream as we don't want tire of vanilla.  

Black and White Wednesday - Week 18

Forks!

Another week of Black and White Wednesday hosted by Susan from The Well Seasoned Cook!  Every week is just as exciting as the week before!   Can't wait to have a look at this week's gallery!


These were props used by Peter from Souvlaki for the Soul during the Food Styling Workshop at the Eat Drink Blog conference over the weekend.  They look lovely.  Mismatched.  Shiny. They all have individual characters.  

Corn dogs!

Classic corn dogs in BW !

We had a sci-fi-villain-super hero-themed Halloween weekend party with some friends and had alien grub for our spread!  And corn dogs was part of the alien feast!  This is a take off from PW's post on the classic corn dog!  And I must say all the aliens and super-hero guests just could not stop munching on these classics!  Definitely not Australian, but was welcomed by all aliens, villains and superheroes from different planets and agencies (talking about DC Comics, Pixar and Disney here).    These were made using a waffle-mix recipe (from scratch as we don't have the American pancake mixes around these parts, and the Oz brands sad to say, are just not the same) with that added secret ingredient - polenta (or corn meal in most other planets).  What originally was a waffle mix turned into a classic nutty corn dog!  

The basic waffle mix with corn meal:

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp sugar

3 eggs, separated

1 and 3/4 cups milk

125ml or 1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 - 2 cups polenta (corn meal)

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar 3 times into a large mixing bowl. 

In another bowl, using a wire whisk beat egg yolks until frothy, stir in milk and oil and mix until thorougly combined.  Pour into the flour mixture and whisk (or beat with a hand held mixer) until smooth.

Using a hand-held mixer, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.  Fold into the batter.

Add the polenta (corn meal) and mix until you get a thick and grainy texture/consistency.

Classic corn dogs in full colour!

To make the classic corn dogs:

1 pack Hans American Hotdogs , cut into half

bamboo barbeque skewers

1-2 cups flour

vegetable oil

Prepare and heat a deep medium-large saucepan on the stove (or use an electronic deep fryer) and add the vegetable oil.  (The oil is hot and ready when smoking and bubbling. Or you can check by placing a small piece of bread and it browns instantly.)

Skewer the hotdogs using the bamboo sticks (or as per Pioneer Woman, use chopsticks!).

Coat the hotdogs with the flour and set on a plate.

Dip the flour-coated hotdogs in the corn-dog-batter one by one.  Then slowly dip the battered hotdog -  stick and all,  into the very hot oil and cook until golden in colour.

Serve with some catsup (tomato sauce in Oz parlance) and mustard! 

Then stand back and watch your family and friends enjoy a classic American treat! 

alien grub

The BW photo is making its way to The Well Seasoned Cook's B&W Wednesday!  As always, big thanks to Susan for organising this weekly culinary photo event!  XX

Mini cheesecakes galore

It has been busy for my new Chicago Metallic Mini Cheesecake Pans since they arrived just before the long weekend.  So far, it has produced 48 mini cheesecakes in a span of 3 days.  As it was too much cheesecakes to consume, I decided to invite some friends over as part of road-testing the pans.  I was not surprised the cheesecakes turned out well - two varieties of mini cheesecakes over the weekend. Who wouldn't want to share in a treat as a finish to the NSW long weekend?

Ah.... cheesecake heaven!

I've used my previous recipe post for the Oreo no-bake mini cheesecake, but had extra base and cake so made an extra one using a Willow mini pie tin.   For the blueberry topped cheesecake, I used the recipe printed on the mini pan's box.  It was simple and quick.  The blueberry topping was from the recipe of the NY Cheesecake I posted awhile back.

To make these mini cheesecakes I used: 

 1 - 250g pack Philadelphia Cream Cheese

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup caster sugar

60ml thickened cream 

(something I added in the second batch as the first one was a bit too thick)

1 cup grounded graham crackers 

(recipe called for ground nuts but we used graham crackers.  I bought heaps when we made the strawberry ice-box cake)

90g melted butter

3 tbsp caster sugar

Pre heat oven to 175* C. Lightly grease the pans or use non stick spray.

Mix the ground graham crackers (or nuts if you're using) with the melted butter and sugar.  Scoop 1 to 1 and 1/2 tbsp evenly among the 12 cups and press with a small dessert spoon or with your thumb.  The crumbs should cover about 1/3 up the sides of the cups.

Using a hand-held mixer of stand mixer, cream the cheese and sugar together.  Add the egg, vanilla and thicken cream and mix until all together.

Scoop 1 tbsp each of the cheesecake batter into the cups. 

Bake for 14-15 minutes. 

(I checked the pan after 14 minutes and found the cake still a bit wobbly.  It too another 2 minutes to cook the cake.  But still, it should depend on the oven you're using.)

Remove from oven and place on a rack and cool for 20 minutes.

Serve with your favourite topping!

 

We took advantage of the blueberries which were on sale at the fruit shops for $3 a punnet!  I can't wait to try on other toppings with these pans!

Thanks to Bakers Royal which I found though Pinterest, for pointing me to the Chicago Metallic Mini Cheesecake Pans.  While my Oreo cheesecakes don't look as attractive, I think I did justice to the cheesecakes with the taste!

PS - The B&W photo above is making its way to Week 13 of The Well-Seasoned Cook's Black and White Wednesday!

Black and White Wednesday

Black Sticky Rice

I'm sending this photo on to The Well Seasoned Cook's Black and White Wednesday - a weekly culinary photo event.  I saw it first from Alessandra Zecchini's site and thought,.... why not?  Looks like a lot of fun!  So here is my first photo to this weekly event.  I know. Not so creative.  As it is already black sticky rice, with (white) coconut cream.    I'll have a look at my previous posts and maybe come up with a newer B&W photo for next week.   I made this black sticky rice a few weeks back.  Recipe here.