Tag Archives: Chocolate

Bakes, Chocolate, Cookies

Marbled Chocolate Cookies

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marble cookies

I’m not a big fan of baking cookies. *Gasp!* Is that horrible to say?

As a baker, I’ve always enjoyed baking cakes more. I like that I just have to mix together my batter, pour into a pan, stick it into the oven and forget about it till it’s done. While waiting, I get to clean up my mess and when the cake comes out, I just have to wait a while, and I can cut into a large slice. Make myself some tea, and voila, I’ve got a tea-time snack all ready to go.

But every so often, I wish I could have a cookie.

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Cakes, Egg, Western

Marble Cake Recipe

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IMG_1281

I don’t really know what to call this marble cake. It’s not quite a pound cake and it’s not quite a butter cake. I guess the best way to describe it would be to say it’s my hybrid version of both (Marbuttle?)

When I was in Malaysia, I baked a lot of cakes using my Third Aunt’s Butter Cake recipe (and even that has been modified because I used to put in 8-10 eggs) but when I got to the US, I found that pound cakes were very popular. Even though I liked them, I found that the ones that I tried to bake up were too dry and too sweet for my Asian tastebuds.

After many trials, I’ve come up with this version that is a hybrid of both and every time I bake it, I never have any leftovers! As a matter of fact, someone who recently had some told me it’s the best marble cake she’s ever had, and I have to agree, it’s that good!

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Cookies, Egg, Western

Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

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Digital Kitchen Scale

digital kitchen scale

Recently, someone asked me why I post so many of my recipes in Metric measures (you know who you are!) instead of cups and Imperial measures. I said, "Well, I’m from Malaysia and we measured all our cooking and baking in grams." To which she responded, "You’re in the US now, so get with it!" Ok, well, there are other reasons I do so.

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Bay Area

Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker (Berkeley)

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Edit 29 January, 2009: Hershey’s announced that they were going to close the Scharffen Berger factory down in West Berkeley, fire their workers, and move production to a plant in Illinois. It looks like they’ve already shut down the factory tour, as a visit to that website just redirects to Hershey’s homepage. Get your California-made Scharffen Berger chocolates while you still can!

As a small kid growing up in America, I only knew two chocolates: Hershey’s and Nestle. Both were milk chocolate, and both were (to me) just okay. Early on, I found that I preferred the Hershey’s “Special Dark” brand of chocolate candy, just because of that slight bitter tang. Ever since then, I’ve always gone for dark chocolate over milk.

Annie is an avowed chocoholic. She introduced me to fine, European-style milk chocolates such as Lindt and Cadbury (the ones that are actually made in Europe, not the American-made ones). Those were good, but I still preferred dark.

Today we went to the Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker factory in Berkeley to take their factory tour. (If you’ve not heard of Scharffen Berger before, they are a very popular maker of “artisanal” chocolates, specializing in dark chocolate.) Unlike the “Willy Wonka” factory, you don’t need to have a golden ticket to get in. Just make a reservation online, and show up 10 minutes before your scheduled start time. It’s totally free!

Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker (Berkeley)

Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker (Berkeley)

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