Mia Bakes: Oreo / Reese Peanut Butter Cups Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

First up, a very Merry Christmas to y'all! 

It was another #bakingtrio project time and this time, we've not only baked some stuffed cookies, but also enlarged the mini yule logs (recipe HERE) we've baked last year following cupcakejemma's recipe.

I will, very much, advise you to at least HALF the buttercream recipe, or use a much smaller baking tray to get thicker sponge cake. If not you'll end up like us, chocolate-rum buttercream overload. Not that we're complaining though. That buttercream is out-of-the-world delicious.

So now, on to the stuffed cookies!

For roughly about 15 to 16 cookies, you'll need:

60g soften unsalted butter

1 small - medium egg

60g castor sugar

40g brown sugar

120g plain flour

(may need to add more)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

70% cocoa chocolate chips 

(however little or much you prefer)

oreo thins

reese peanut butter cups

Note: I do suggest trying out with standard oreos instead as we found oreo thins a little too underwhelming.

And also, because #bakingtrio prefers to do less sweet, you may want to add a little more sugar if you'll prefer your cookies to be sweeter. Or you might just want to use a sweeter variation of chocolate chips if you fancy. 

First up, cream your butter and sugars until it turns light and creamy, before beating in the egg and vanilla extract. Sift in all your dry ingredients and fold until you do not see large pockets of flour, before folding in your chocolate chips until just combined. 

Make sure your dough is pliable and doesn't stick to your hands excessively (or even too liquidy to work with). Fold in more flour (tbsp by tbsp) if required, until you get a consistency you can work with. Then, use a tablespoon and spoon your cookie dough into 30g dough balls and wrap either an oreo cookie or reese peanut butter cup into each ball. 

This cookie will be slightly cakey and dense, so it wouldn't spread much so do remember to give your dough balls a little press on top to flatten it as you place them about 1.5 inches apart on your baking sheet, before baking them for about 11 to 12 minutes at 175 degree Celsius or until your cookies starts to turn a light golden brown at the edges. 

And I have to say the reese peanut buttercup ones were really satisfying! We decided to use the leftover ganache from the yule log for the oreo stuffed ones too, which kine of make it up for their lack of oomph. 

So, how was your Christmas bakes? Do share them with me!

Till then,

Mia Foo

Food Tasting: Burger Monster [Honest Review]

If you still don't know, I'm a huge fan of BURGERS! So while this visit to the latest baby of Chicken Up is a food tasting invite, there wasn't any obligation to put up a blog post about it, so you can take this as a 100% honest review. 

But oh well, I did say I love burgers though. Like, a lot. :)

-credits to yelp.sg-

Located at a corner of Jurong East MRT Station, just below the platform at Level 1, it might be easy to miss the eatery if not for the cute Burger Monster icon on their distinctive white-blue signboard (and "mis-match" Chicken Up's chicken feet logo on the glass panel). 

All these crazy amount of food for just 5 of us (out of which 4 of us are ladies). But we were quick to concede to our impending failure and quickly call-out to our respective partners for help. HAHAHA. 

So in the end, a total of 8 pax (4 couples)... still COULDN'T finish all these food. A lonely slice of the insanely big monster burger was leftover in the end. 

With their standard, and yet still pretty big (like a McD Big Mac), sized burgers going for $5 to $6 dollars, breadrolls at $3 to $8, and other mains (fried fish & chicken etc) going at $4 to $6, this newly opened Korean burger joint has definitely scored a brownie point for offering you quality food with extremely affordable prices. 

Burger Monster also offers a wide variety of small bites and sides, ranging from $2 (Garlic Fried Rice) to $12 (Mini Lobster with Chili Crab Sauce).

To make your burgers/mains a full meal, just top up an additional $3 for fries/garlic fried rice + drink, or $5 to make your drink free flow!

There's also a condiment bar in the eatery, providing 8 different types of sauces, such as cheese, wasabi mayo and yangnyum etc, for you to try out!

But I guess their most popular dish (that's highly raved on IG) has got to be this massive, 1KG birthday cake lookalike, 22cm big Monster Burger, which comes in either Beef or Chicken Bulgogi flavour. 

Priced at just $20 for this ridiculously huge burger, you can easily feed 4 hungry men with it, no joke. I would even recommend up to 6 (ladies) with a small selection of sides to share for a more comfortable, non-tummy bursting meal. 

Couldn't try this Monster Burger out because I don't take beef, but I did cut pieces of the huge buns to try out and instantly got ADDICTED. These buns are so fluffy, and even slightly crisp at the edges. I think I must have (at least) asked the BF to "cut me a piece of your bread" at least 4 to 5 times while he's eating his two slices of the insanely oversized burger. 

Shark Burger - $6

This has got to be my favourite burger of the day! Thick fillet of fried shark meat topped with (a lot of) shredded onions, sliced tomatoes, fresh lettuce & cheese, and sandwiched between two extremely soft and fluffy buns. The shark fillet is also generously drenched with a spicy and slightly sweet (yangnyum?) sauce that probably helped/serves to cover the otherwise distinctive "fishy" smell of shark meat. And the sauce must have done a great job, because I couldn't taste that "fishy" taste of shark meat at all. The meat was also more moist and tender as compared to our usual dry and tough stir-fried shark meat. 

My only complaint is, the burger is too big to be eaten.... well, like how a burger should be eaten. It is absolutely impossible to get a bite of everything with one bite. Pretty sure all of us ate it the deconstructed-burger way. 

 Grilled Chicken Burger - $5

Even though this pales slightly in comparison to the Shark Burger, I can't deny that it is still a very good chicken burger. There wasn't any special sauce to oomph up the flavour, but the grilled chicken was thick, tender and still pretty juicy. 

And well, you can always add whatever sauce you fancy to this burger over at the condiment bar, so all is good! 

The other two mains, the Unagi Roll ($8) and Fried Seabass ($8) unfortunately didn't do very well at impressing us. I completely skipped the Unagi Roll (because I really dislike Unagi, sorry!) but both the BF and Oyhz claims that the breadroll and the unagi tasted like separated dish. I also found that the breadroll didn't really hold up very well with the unagi, sauce and all. Just a small slice of my knife and the whole unagi roll disintegrated upon itself. 

As for the Fried Seabass, it might have been because we took way too long at taking photos, so much so that it has turned cold and harden. If it's not for the fact that there's another 7 pax waiting to try a bite, I would have just stick my fork in, pick up the entire fillet and take a bite directly out if it. Slicing it was just like slicing through rubber. The meat was also dry and a little tough, probably overcooked. 

Black Ball ($7) & Mini Lobster ($12)

And now for the two dishes which were quite highly anticipated, but failed to deliver. 

The black ball was pretty much just, sotong ball made black. Not sure if they've added in squid ink or not, but... it really just taste like your standard sotong ball, except that it's black. At one point I strongly believed that something special must be hidden within the ball, but there was absolutely nothing. The white bits you see are just small chunks of sotong. 

As for the mini lobster, it's really.... tiny. All the effort of peeling the shell, only to get the meat that's equivalent to HALF the size of a shrimp. But to be fair, the chili crab sauce does taste pretty decent though. 

Burger Monster is located at 10 Jurong East Street 12 #01-01 Jurong East MRT Station

and is open daily from 11am to 10pm.

For more information, visit their facebook page HERE.

Till then,

Mia Foo

Mia Bakes: Salted Caramel Chip Wholemeal Chocolate Cookies

Now, that sounds like a mouthful isn't it? HAHAHA.

Well, I was looking at my leftover bag of salted caramel chips after baking the Chocolate Lava Salted Caramel Chip Cookie and thought, what else can I make out of this? 

Well, actually you can make anything with salted caramel chips, really. But I was still craving for some half soft-half crunchy cookie, so well... let's go!

To make 12-14 cookies, you'll need:

50g soften unsalted butter

25g baking stevia 

(or castor sugar, if you fancy)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tbsp raw honey

1/2 egg 

(to get half an egg, beat your egg and measure out half of the weight)

10g unsweetened cocoa powder

90g wholemeal flour

(you can use plain flour if you prefer)

1/4 tsp baking soda

a pinch of salt

(or use salted butter and omit salt)

50g salted caramel chips

optional:

dark chocolate chunks

colourful sprinkles

-recipe adapted from geniuskitchen.com-

This really CANNOT be any easier. 

First up, cream your butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, before beating in the egg, honey and vanilla extract. 

Sift in your dry ingredients (do not skip sifting as cocoa powder is always lumpy) and fold until most of the pockets of flour has disappeared, before folding in the salted caramel chips until just combined. 

Drop tablespoonful of your cookie batter onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper, space them about an inch apart. They do spread a bit, but not that much, so do press them down a little with wet hands if you prefer a flatter cookie. 

If you fancy, press in a few chunks of dark chocolate (or any chocolate you like) over the top of the flatten cookie and sprinkle some colourful sprinkles over the top before sending these cookies into the oven at 180 degree Celsius and bake them for about 15 to 18 minutes. 

 And, tadaa~

The sprinkles definitely added a nice, joyous touch to these cookies, which is slightly cakey and right smack in between a crunchy cookie and a soft cookie. YUMS!

Till then,

Mia Foo