Recipe: Black and white pudding

It's been almost two weeks since I came to Netherlands. It's a beautiful country and I can't stop saying pretty since the day I arrived. Wageningen is a small and pretty city, it reminds me a lot of Davis (maybe it's prettier here haha). Our apartment is surrounded by parks and nature and we enjoy walking to the arboretums nearby. The campus is small, and I like the fact that my office, lab and greenhouse is all at one place. The idea of cycling from one end to another is not really fun. Albeit Netherlands is known for its flat land, this place is a little bit hilly and cycling from campus to home can be quite challenging for me.

Grocery shopping is awesome as the market has fresh local produce, even finding fresh halal meat is easy. Baking supplies on the other hand is another story. It's pretty hard to find few ingredients  here (baking soda and cream of tartar for example), not to mention the price is not compatible with my wallet. I will buy the baking stuff one by one, and yeah seems like I have to buy most of the things online (read: 'cheaper').

I haven't tried much of the local sweets, but the honey and nut cake from one of the local bakeries is yummy! I was searching for the recipe but couldn't get my hand on it. Seems like it's their very own special recipe. Owh well, maybe I can try making something similar later. Stroopwafel is to die for. I know few people don't like it because of the sweet caramel filing, but the cookies taste great when you complement it with coffee and tea (without sugar please!).

Anyway, there was a Malaysians get-together few days ago for sunset viewing and watching football match of Netherlands vs Spain (wasn't it such a great match! haha), and I prepared simple pudding which I find awesome. It's a combination of chocolate and vanilla pudding and I put chocolate ganache and stroopkoeken (a butter cookies version of stroopwafel) for extra flavor. You can use other cookies if you want, but I find having the cookies gave that extra crunch to the pudding. Owh yeah, this is American+British pudding thus the texture is different than Malaysian type of pudding.

Black and White Pudding (makes 12 -16 pudding in ramekins)

Chocolate pudding (recipe source from Nigella with few modification)

100 grams dark chocolate (I used IKEA's dark chocolate)

100 grams unsalted butter

4 tablespoons of caster sugar (you can use more if you want, I love my desserts less sweet)
4 large eggs
50 grams plain flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt

Vanilla pudding (recipe source from Taste of Home with few modification)

2-1/2 cups milk, divided

Pinch salt
2 tablespoons of caster sugar (you can add more if you want)
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon butter

For filling and chocolate ganache

12-16 stroopkoeken (or you can use other butter cookies)

180 gm dark chocolate (I used IKEA's dark chocolate)

200 gm cream (I used 30% cream)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Break up the chocolate and melt it with the butter in a bowl in the microwave or in a double boiler. Once it's melted, sit the bowl on a cold surface so that the chocolate cools.
3. Beat the eggs and sugar until thick and pale and moussy, then gently fold in the flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt.
4. Fold in the slightly cooled chocolate and butter mixture and then put 1/3 in each ramekin and bake for 20-25 minutes. While waiting for the chocolate pudding to be cooked, prepared the vanilla pudding.
5. Place 2 cups milk and salt in a saucepan. Sprinkle sugar on milk and do not stir; heat over medium-high. Quickly combine cornstarch with remaining milk and mix well. When milk comes to a full boil, remove saucepan from the heat and stir in cornstarch mixture. Pudding will begin to thicken. Return to the heat and cook for 1 minute. Remove from the heat; stir in vanilla and butter. 
6. To make chocolate ganache, break chocolate in small pieces and put it in a bowl with cream and  microwave or double boiler until the chocolate melts. 
7. To assemble: take out the chocolate pudding from the oven, put stroopkoeken on top of it and cover with vanilla pudding. Let's everything cool and set, and put chocolate ganache on top of the vanilla pudding. You have to make sure the vanilla pudding is set or it will mix with the ganache. 
8. Put it in the fridge and let it cool for 2 hours or overnight. Garnish with raspberries or anything you desire.

The sour taste of raspberries complements well with dark chocolate. 

Hope you guys love this recipe! 

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Creamy banana layer pudding ordered by Huda

It is raining heavily right now. I don't feel like going back and yet I have to. I know I haven't been updating my blog for a while, but rest assure I will still blog when I have free time. 

At the meantime, do check Muniroh's Bakery Facebook page from time to time to see the latest photos. 

Huda, a friend of a friend who is an avid baker as I am, ordered this delicious banana layer pudding. She could make it by herself if she wants to, but she ordered from me instead because it saves more time. It makes sense, I would have done the same thing too if I were in her shoes. 

She loves this pudding, as she is a big fan of banana. This is my favorite too because I love vanilla pudding so much, and this pudding goes really well with banana. I made two big trays of this banana pudding during last Eid, and it finished so fast that I could not believe it. Yes, that shows how good this banana pudding 

I made a new chocolate version- filled with biscuit, chocolate cream cheese, chocolate pudding and chocolate shaved, and the taste is fantastic! Really recommend to you who love chocolate.

Okay, I think that's enough for today haha. I am not really in the mood of blogging, and yet I feel pity at my almost abandoned blog. Hope you guys the enjoy the rainy season, I'm not that's for sure.

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Banana galore week: Creamy banana layer pudding

After baking the banana cake, I couldn't figure out what to do with the leftover banana. I listed down several things that I wanted to make; pie, serawa pisamg, another banana cake using different recipe, and banana pudding. I finally chose to make pudding because it doesn't require much time hehe.

I remembered I was drooling looking at Safiyyah's banana pudding picture on Facebook that I decided to make something similar using my own recipe (yup, I made my own pudding recipe hebat tak? haha tolonglah puding je kot)  

I brought the pudding to the lab so that my friends could get a taste of it. During lunch hour, when I wanted to get a small scoop for my husband, I noticed that the baking pan was 9/10 empty. My friends said that it was sooo good that they couldn't stop eating, and some of them even said that it was the best dessert that they have eaten so far in Malaysia. They said they could find something similar in Iran, but not in Malaysia. Wow the desserts in Iran must be really good then, but I do remember that I had the best vanilla ice cream in Esfahan :D

I told them the reason it tasted good was that I didn't use any substitute to make this pudding. I made it from scratch- neither using custard powder nor instant mix, and the ingredients that I used was  good quality and expensive. Most bakers in Malaysia will use substitute to make their goodies, thus lack in taste.

 

Too bad I don't have any nice casserole dish at home, it would have look nicer with it :)

Note: I do sell this pudding, you can PM me for more details :)

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