Pancakes

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

The first time I had a pancake was in Scotland as a student. I was living with a wonderful lady to help me with my English on my first year in Edinburgh. She bought those ready small pancakes in packets, popped them in the toaster, and have them warm with butter..Oh I loved them..

So when I was back to Oman, I was telling one of my friends (who happened to be with me in Scotland) how much I missed pancakes, and she told me that I can get the ready boxed ones. So I bought one and used to add eggs, oil and milk as I remember. I wasn't still satisfied.

Then I found one recipe in a book on kids food that I changed a bit, and was almost happy..but not totally..

I then looked for few recipes, attempted a lot...but nothing was my perfect pancake recipe..Till I found it...this one...after I nearly lost hope :D..

They have cake texture, and the secret is not to over mix...just mix till the batter combines but with lumps..

The recipe adapted from herehere

Buttermilk pancakes (but I never used buttermilk :O))

it yields for me nine medium sized pancakes:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups buttermilk (or 2 cups milk plus 1 tablespoon lemon juice which is what I always use)
1 large egg
3 tablepoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
oil for the skillet (my pan is non-stick so I omit this)

(I add cinnamon powder with mashed banana sometimes, or vanilla alone, or powdered cardamom)

• Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. Wisk them together and then form a well in the middle. Set aside. Combine the wet ingredients together in a small bowl. Wisk them together. 

• Pour the wet ingredients into the well you formed in the middle of the dry ingredients. Using a wisk, mix scraping the bottom of the bowl, mixing just until everything is moist, but still lumpy. The batter will be very thick, this is the way it should be. Do not over mix.

• heat your pan over medium to low heat before adding the batter.  Pour about 1/4-1/2 cup of batter into the skillet. Depending on the pan you might be able to cook more than one at a time.

• The batter will be thick so you might need to spread it. Cook the pancakes for two minutes or until golden brown than flip them over and brown the other side. The second side should take slightly less time than the first. Serve warm.

Biscuit Sandwich Cookies

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

I have a small cook book called "Gorgeous biscuits" -family circle, and I have been looking in the net for a link to refer to it but couldn't find any information. Well, I can take a picture of my copy but it is in a really bad condition lol. My son loves it and walks around with it, and you can find it thrown everywhere.

Anyway, I've attempted baking these specific cookies because of my son. He has seen the pictures and insisted on having them. The cookies are chewy, not the crunchy or crispy type that some people like. Personally I prefer the crunchy cookies if I am using a filling.


The filling has the tangy lemony flavour. I wanted to make the caramel filling but I didn't have condensed milk, but sure I will attempt it next time.

If I feel down, sad or a bit depressed, I bake. It does make me feel better. Specially if some frosting is involved. :)

Ingredients (for the cookies):

125 gm butter

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 egg

1/4 tsp vanilla

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup self-raising flour

Lime butter filling (ingredients):

60 gm butter

1 cup icing sugar

2 tsp lime juice

finally shredded rind of a lime (I didn't add this)

(for the filling: beat butter and sugar until smooth, add the lime juice, beat till mixture is speadable).

• Preheat oven to 165 degrees Celsius
• beat butter and caster sugar until fluffy and creamy
• Add the egg and 1/4 tsp vanilla and beat well
• sift the flours and fold them into the mixture, I used a wooden spoon then continued with my hand
• you might need extra flour as the dough is quite soft
• using biscuit cutters, cut into desired shapes

• bake in batches for 10-15 minutes.

• cool the biscuits then cover half of the biscuits with the filling and sandwich with the other half.
• it makes around 50 pieces of biscuits.

for the caramel filling:

30 gm butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup condensed milk

• melt butter, brown sugar and condensed milk in a pan and bring to boil till mixture thickens
• cool and spread on biscuits

Brownies

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

I don't like the too chocolatey-bitter chocolate cakes or brownies, so these were just perfect for me. I got the recipe from this lovely blog "the kitchen of a Saudi Wife" and as she mentioned, the most important thing is not to over mix it, I used a whisk to mix the batter. 

Ingredients:

100 gm salted butter

1 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

In the original recipe, you'll get an icing recipe but I never used it. The brownies are so good they don't stay long to be iced :D

Preheat oven to 175 c

• Melt butter, remove from heat, cool and whisk with sugar, eggs, and vanilla
• Add flour mixed with the baking powder, don't over mix here. 
• I use my cupcake tray to make these brownies
• bake for 15-20 minutes 
• Enjoy...

blogging back

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

I am sorry my blog for not posting anything and for deserting you. I have missed you actually.

Not that I haven't been cooking for the last month, but I couldn't bother taking photographs of food. Moreover, I left my laptop in Oman (forgot it!) so downloading photographs wasn't an option. 

I will be busy in the coming weeks with some stuff, inshallah will talk about them when I write again here. For the time being I just wanted to write and remember my dear food blog..

xx