White Chocolate Blondies with Matcha Swirls

This recipe was really, really popular at my lab. I was surprised myself with how good they were- you don't even need to do the usual brownie/blondie-making step of dissolving the eggs in the butter over boiling water. Instead, you use a can of sweetened condensed milk to give a nice, chewy texture. I love white chocolate in almost everything, and this a great way to showcase the flavour of a high-quality white chocolate.

I added matcha powder in a pretty swirly-pattern on top so that there'd be a little bitterness to balance out the intense sweetness. You can also use earl grey tea, cocoa or expresso powder to the same effect. You can also just skip the swirl and top with some powdered sugar.

White Chocolate Blondies with Matcha Swirls
From Broma Bakery

115 g. (1/2 C.) Butter
1 C. White chocolate, chopped (or good quality chips or pieces)
1 Egg
1 Can (14 Oz.) Sweetened condensed milk
2-3 Tsp. Vanilla extract
1/2-1 Tsp. Salt
1 1/2 C. All purpose or pastry flour
1 Tsp. Matcha powder

Preheat oven to 180℃. Grease and line an 8"x 8" or 9"x13" pan with buttered baking parchment.

Melt the butter in a microwaveable bowl or in a bain-marie and add the white chocolate. Heat until both are dissolved.

Let cool until just warm when the side of the bowl is touched. Whisk in the egg, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla and salt.

Sift in the flour. Separate 1/4 of the batter and whisk in the matcha powder. Pour the plain batter into the pan first, then spoon 4-5 blobs of the matcha batter over the top and swirl with a fork, knife or chopstick until a nice swirly pattern forms.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, then remove and let cool at least 15 minutes before removing from the pan.

Key Lime Pie Bars

I lost these pictures for a while amongst the other things I baked this summer- but I'm glad to find them again, because these are really delicious. I made them with what was left in the pantry just before departing on vacation as a gift for the family watching our cats, and they were extremely popular from the reviews I got.

You need very few ingredients to put these together, provided you can find key limes- but I think they'd probably be pretty good made with regular Persian limes (or maybe meyer lemons!) instead. Another garnish idea is toasted shredded coconut, seeing as coconut and lime go so well together.

Key Lime Pie Bars
Adapted from Brown Eyed Baker

For the Crust:
1- 1 1/4 C. Graham cracker crumbs
5 TBSP Butter, melted
2 TBSP Sugar

Mix all in a food processor until the consistency is that of wet sand. Pat onto the base and sides of a greased and parchment-lined 8"x8" baking tray. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until set firmly.

For the Filling:
1/2 C. Key lime juice
Zest of 6 key limes
4 Egg yolks
14 Oz. Sweetened condensed milk

Mix juice, zest and yolks with a whisk. Stir in milk and keep whisking until thickened. Pour onto the cooled crust and bake at 170℃ until set but still wobbly when poked, about 15-18 minutes.

For the Topping:
1 C. Sour cream
1/4 C. Powder sugar

Mix well and spread on top of the cooled bars.

Halaya Ube Ice Cream

It's hard to imagine a simple ice cream recipe that comes out better than this one- it's creamy, soft and delicately flavoured, contains no eggs and takes hardly any time to prepare. It's even beautifully lavender-coloured. It goes perfectly with the mango ice cream I made earlier, but I imagine that it would also pair well with a bright green pandan ice cream or a red bean ice cream. Frozen, grated ube isn't hard to find in Asian supermarket's freezer aisles, though if I could find them fresh I'd like to try that at least once.

The halaya ube jam on its own.

The halaya ube jam is quite thin- but this makes it ideal for the ice cream batter, and easy to spread on bread or pancakes. It's incredibly delicious and worth a try if you haven't had ube before- it's nothing like the common orange sweet potatoes, with a delicate aromatic flavour that's hard to describe. Try it!

With the mango-cardamom ice cream- complimentary colours!

Halaya Ube Ice Cream
From Adora's Box

For the Halaya Ube:
1 410 g. Can evaporated milk
3/4 C. Sugar
2 Pandan leaves (optional) or 1 Tsp. Vanilla extract
1 Lb. Grated ube/purple sweet potatoes (one frozen package)
1 TBSP Butter
Red and blue food colouring to enhance purple-ness (if desired!)

Cook together for 5 minutes, or until thickened. Let cool. 

(You can halve this recipe to just make the ice cream, or use the rest as a spread, in buns, et cetera.)

For the Ice Cream:

1/2 Above halaya ube recipe
1 C. Sweetened condensed milk, or 1 can
300 ml Heavy/whipping cream
1 C. Milk, preferably whole
Pinch of salt

Mix all of the ingredients thoroughly and refrigerate at least 6 hours. Churn in an ice cream machine according to manufacturer's instructions.

Mango-Cardamom Ice Cream (Eggless)

One of my favourite ice cream recipes is this very simple, eggless recipe that uses both delicious ataulfo mangoes (the king of mangoes!) and my favourite spice, cardamom. The flavours complement each other tremendously, and the texture is smooth and creamy even without eggs thanks to the sweetened condensed milk. 

I like to use canned mango purée because good fresh ones are few and far between, but if you can find some, just put them through a food processor until you get the 2 cups of purée. Another side benefit of this recipe is that because there aren't any eggs, there's no need to strain the mixture- it doesn't curdle at all.

The cardamom isn't necessary, but it adds a little bit more of a special touch, and makes it a very fitting dessert after any Indian meal. No embellishments are necessary, but if you want to make it a little fancier, try adding slivered almonds, crushed pistachios, flaked coconut or fresh mango pieces as a garnish. 

Mango-Cardamom Ice Cream
Adapted from Gayathri's Cooking Spot

2 C. Ataulfo mango purée
1 C. + 2 TBSP Milk
1 C. Whipping cream
1 Small can (about 1 cup) sweetened condensed milk
8 Cardamom pods
Pinch of salt
1 Tsp. Cornstarch

In a large bowl, mix the cream and mango purée. Set aside.

In a large saucepan, bring 1 C. of the milk, sweetened condensed milk, salt and cardamom to a boil. Remove from heat and cover. Allow to infuse for 30 minutes.

Mix the 2 TBSP milk and cornstarch. Stir into the mixture and bring back to a boil. Cook on medium heat until thickened.

Let cool for about 5 minutes while stirring, then pour into the bowl with the cream and mango and mix well. Refrigerate for at least 12 hours.

Freeze according to ice cream maker instructions.

Seven Layer Magic Cookie Bars

I made these over-the-top dessert bars with a bit of everything that I had left over in the pantry that was at risk of going stale- some graham crackers, nuts, coconut and chocolate chips. In fact, I think I might have gone overboard... the nuts had a hard time sticking to the bars because of how many toppings there were! I would definitely recommend sticking to the amounts in the recipe and not going nuts (literally and figuratively) like I did- chopping the nuts would have probably made them stick better, but I liked how the whole pecans looked.

They're loaded and tricky to cut, unless frozen for a bit, but definitely delicious. How can you go wrong with graham crackers, coconut, and loads of chocolate and nuts? You can add any kind of toppings you want, as long as you've got the seven that the name entitles. Graham crackers, coconut, sweetened condensed milk... the other four are up to you. I used white chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, pecans, and walnuts (and a bit of flaked coconut as a garnish...). So, they're kind of eight layer bars in my case. Why not?

These bars keep well in the freezer, and don't need to be all thawed out for consumption- I like 'em chilled. These are best eaten with tea or coffee while catching up on old TV shows that everyone else has already seen, while complaining about shoddily introduced plot points. 

Just give them about half an hour at room temperature if you aren't so inclined to them cold. Whatever temperature they are, you'll be glad to have a few in the freezer for a quick bit of something sweet and rich.

Magic Seven Layer Cookie Bars
Adapted from Viet World Kitchen

120 g. (1 1/3 C.) Desiccated unsweetened coconut
180 g.  (8-10 sheets) Graham crackers
113 g. (1/2 C.) Butter, melted
1/2 Tsp. Salt
2 TBSP Sugar
1 C. Mixed chocolate chunks (dark, milk, white- should be at least half dark so it isn't too sweet)
1 C. Chopped nuts (pecans, walnuts, roasted almonds)
1/2 C. Flaked unsweetened coconut, optional
14-15 Oz. Sweetened condensed milk (One large can)

Preheat the oven to 180℃. Grease a 9"x13" pan and line with baking parchment.

Soak the coconut in boiling-hot water for 2 minutes and strain well in a sieve, squeezing out excess water. Mix with half of the salt and the sugar. Set aside.

Grind the graham crackers into crumbs with the remaining salt. Add the melted butter and mix well. Press onto the bottom and sides of the pan to form a crust.

Spread the coconut mixture evenly onto the crust. Add the chocolate chunks and nuts. Top with the sweetened condensed milk, and sprinkle on the flaked coconut (if using).

Bake for 30 minutes, covering with aluminium foil if it browns too quickly. Freeze for 15 minutes before cutting (refrigerating won't make it cold enough)