Chef Kaden's Buttermilk Biscuits and Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's Spring Break!    What a fun we had baking and jumping high at the Jump Sky High, climbing at the Granite Rock... Soooo hungry, Chef Kaden got up early in the morning and baked some Buttermilk Biscuits.  Then, he made sure that we all have Chocolate Chip Cookies and 5-Grain Cereal Raisin Cookies to take along to other field trips we had.

 Ready to bake!

 All Done!  Time to eat!

 Wait a minute!  I only had two biscuits - where did all other 10 go!
Time to make our snacks.

 They are really great! NaiNai!

BUTTERMILK BISCUITS:
Serves 4
Preheat oven to 425'F to 450'F
1 -1/2 C AP Flour, Shifted
1 Tbsp non-aluminum baking powder
1/8 tsp or pinch of baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
4 Tbsp Butter or shortening cut into small squares - e.g. 9 squares per tablespoon
6 Tbsp or more cold Buttermilk  or with water
METHODS:
Shift shifted flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda 3 times.
Mix butter in.  Coat the butter with flour.  Mash butter squares between fingers to flat flakes.  Flatten butter pieces between fingers to form flat flakes. Leave them as is.

Add cold buttermilk and allow it to be absorbed.  Fold dry flour over, add more buttermilk, repeat folding dry flour over, then more buttermilk. The dough is shaggy and should not be dry.  Nice and moist.  Gently flatten the dough into disc or roll out gently without pressing down too much and cut out with biscuit cutter.   Transfer to a small baking tray.

Tips:  Place them close to each other for soft crumb.  Place on top of the aluminum foil and fold up the sides of the foil to the biscuits for soft side crumb.

Bake till golden brown on the top.

Serve with Milk Gravy or it can also be used for Strawberries with Chantilly on biscuits.

  

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES WITH 5 GRAINS CEREAL AND RAISINS 
Depending on the size of your desired cookies - makes 2 dozen 2" cookies
Preheat oven to 375'F
2/3 C shortening and butter mixed - 1/2 C butter, and rest with shortening
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C brown sugar
1 large egg
1-1/4 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1-1/3 C Flour
1/3 C Bob's Red-Mill 5 Grain Cereals
1/3 C Raisins - chopped
1 C Chocolate Chips
METHODS:
 Shift flour, baking soda, salt together.  Mix butter mixture sugars, egg and vanilla and blend well by hand or mixer with paddle attachment at medium speed.  Add flour mixture and mix at low speed or by hand using a spatula.  Add grain cereals and mix.  at this point, you can divide it into two separate groups to make Chocolate chip cookies or with raisins.  Add chopped raisins.
Use a 1" cookie dough scoop and place on top of baking sheet with Silpat.
Bake for 8 minutes.  Remove.  Let cool for 1 minute.  Transfer to cooking rack.

Tartine Baguettes Adventure #2

If you have been trying to bake Baguettes, etc, I recommend Tartine Bread book.  Here is my test #2 from the book.   I love their step-by-step photo illustration on how to form the bread.  I always had a difficult time describing it myself to others as well, so I am glad to have the examples to follow, at least as a great start in learning the how to's

Sprinkling the "Rice Flour" on the cloth definitely made a big difference when the time of transfer from the peel to the baking stone in the oven.

From the same dough.    Place the dough seam side up.  

And Turn it over onto a peel Seam side down.

Umm... .need some improvements on the scoring - I need sharp blade or lame!!!!  Not lame -- the lame blade.

Love to listen to the crackles sound after they come out of the oven.

Tea Eggs - TSA-DANg under the Spring Cherry Blossom Trees

Tea Eggs - TSA-DANg  always bring back the childhood memory of picnic under the Cherry Blossom trees.   Spreading a sheet under the cherry trees with their extended branches covered with thousands of blossoms.  All dressed up in soft white petals with pink tips.  Swaying in the soft spring breeze and watch the petals softly fall on our picnic.
It's our spring Cherry Blossom family field trip organized by my father's company.   I really enjoy the view of beautiful cherry blossom, and all the great food our mother had prepared for us.  And never miss the Tea eggs.
Tea eggs are hard boiled eggs infused and seasoned with tea leaves and spices.  Not only does the cooking method add different dimension to the taste of regular hard boiled eggs, it can travel far without refrigeration for many hours.  Following the Chinese custom of 'sharing' - give and take and give - they are often shared with other families at the picnic.  Almost every family has brought the tea eggs.    I noticed the silent competition amongst the housewives when they share the tea eggs.  They quickly judge which one has been successfully brewed and infused with tea as they peel the shells off while thanking the other family for sharing, and taking a bite.   So what are they judging?  It's the beautiful spider web like pattern imprinted on the egg whites that they are looking at.
So, try it.  It's spring.  Enjoy the outdoor.
Since I don't have a photo of my own picnic under the cherry blossom, here is the link to the Google Images of all the HANAMI celebration of spring Cherry Blossom.
http://www.webcrawler.com/search/images?ss=t&q=picnic%20under%20Japanese%20Cherry%20blossom%20&fcoid=408&fcop=left&fpid=2

Ingredients:
10 eggs hard boiled for 15 minutes
Bring to boil 5 - 6 Cups of water (enough to cover the eggs - depending on the size of your pot), then simmer for 15 minutes.   Remove eggs.
Create Egg Shell Cracks -  Lightly tap egg shells to create cracks all around - but do not remove the shells off the eggs.   This will allow the flavor to infuse into the eggs during the next step of boiling in the tea mixtures.

Tea Mixtures:
Create a large Sachet bag to hold all ingredients if you prefer.   Otherwise boil all ingredients loose in a pot.

1 Tbsp Kosher salt
1/2 C tea leaves
3 star anise
1 Tb cinnamon
7 C water  (Add more if needed to be sure that all eggs are immersed under water)

Bring 7 C of water to boil.  Add all ingredients.  Add cracked eggs and simmer over low heat for 1 hour+.     Bring one out and peek under the shell - is it beautiful?  Then, Done!
Serve  or
Cool and refrigerate overnight to infuse the flavor deeper.