Garlic Herb Cheese Bombs

Although I'm already a month into my 3rd trimester and I really shouldn't be tinkering in the kitchen, but I just can't help it! My brain wouldn't stop thinking about food, no matter making or eating (or making so I can eat them). This is one of those that I couldn't get out of my mind for days, so I told myself, this will be the last time... again. 😅 The lies I keep telling myself. 

These Garlic Herb Cheese Bombs are the perfect morsels of buttery, garlicky goodness, each bursting with melty cheese! Awesome as appetisers, snacks or like me, eat a lot more as a light meal. If you already love having cheese on garlic bread, you will love these cheese-filled, tender, garlic butter biscuits even more! A must-try recipe for you!

Garlic Herb Cheese Bombs (makes 24 bite-sized snacks)

240g     Plain flour
  15g     Sugar
    5g     Garlic powder
    5g     Dried Italian herbs
    2g     Salt
    1g     Pepper
  10g     Baking powder

  80g     Butter, cold, unsalted
175g     Buttermilk, cold (adjust more or less accordingly)

240g     Mozzarella cheese, cut into 24pcs

To brush on
  50g     Butter, melted, unsalted
  10g     Garlic, minced
    5g     Parsley, chopped
    1g     Salt

Preheat oven to 200°C
1. Mix evenly the flour, sugar, garlic powder, Italian herbs, baking powder and salt. Add in the butter, then using a knife/fork/pastry cutter to cut it through the flour mixture till it resembles breadcrumbs.

2. With a fork or spatula, slowly stir in the buttermilk, bit by bit, and mix till the dough just comes together. You may require more or less than the stated amount. Then briefly knead the dough with your hand (just under 10 kneads) till it no longer sticks to the side of the bowl . Cling wrap and rest dough in fridge for at least 20 mins.

3. On a lightly floured surface, roll the chilled dough out to a rectangular shape, approximately 5 mm thick and cut the dough into 24 pieces.

4. Wrap a piece of mozzarella cheese in each piece of dough, making sure that all the edges are sealed well. Roll them into a ball before placing on a lined baking sheet. 

5. Melt butter in microwave and add to the minced garlic, chopped parsley and salt. Gently brush on the garlic butter mixture onto the cheese bombs. Bake 15-17 mins till golden brown.

6. Remove the cheese bombs from the oven, let cool slightly and serve immediately.

If you like this recipe and would like to share it, please link to this blog post with its original contents. All recipes are created by me (unless otherwise stated) and require a lot of effort and time to craft. Crediting back is the biggest form of encouragement for me! Thank you! =)

Thoughts: Unlike my recent recipe shares, these Garlic Herb Cheese Bombs do require some time to make. But even at my current snail-slow speed and pregger's brain, frequently scrambling around for ingredients, I did manage to finish under 2 hours with a 30 mins rest time. It should be much faster for you guys. However, if you have access to ready-to-use biscuit dough, it should dramatically shorten the required time to roughly an hour. It will not taste the same though, without the garlic powder and dried herbs in the dough, but it will be easy and fuss-free.

I still prefer to make the dough from scratch and if you want to save some time, I highly recommend doing this. Blitz the flour mixture and cold butter using a food processor instead of doing it manually. Not only will it be easier and quicker, the butter also gets cut up more finely, gets mixed more evenly and remains cold. These factors will contribute to a tender bake. Seriously, I would have used a food processor if not for the fact that I hate washing them. 😝

As for the buttermilk, I would advise not adding all at once. I started with 150g and drizzle in 1 teaspoonful each time till it reaches the consistency I'm after. In the end, I used 165g for this particular bake. If the dough becomes too wet and tacky; more flour has to be added just so it can be handled properly, the resulting bake will be tough with tight crumbs. It's one lesson I learned the hard way through my past failures.

There are 2 minor changes I would make for the next bake though. I might increase the amount of salt in the dough, swap Mozzarella for Cheddar or grate some Parmesan on top of the bombs before baking. While I find the bombs a little under-seasoned, the rest of the family thinks it's all good. I don't know, it could be me tasting differently due to hormonal change but I would still like to try those changes. The other thing would be to separate the chopped parsley in the garlic butter mixture and have them sprinkled on only towards the end of the baking time. Applying them from the start dries out the fresh parsley too much, making them lose its fragrance and colour. Not really a big deal, I just thought they look pretty awful on the photos so I can improve them the next time or rather, *ahem* have excuses to make more! 

But one thing for sure is that calling these "cheese bombs" are not at all exaggerating. Just look at that cheese go!

Try these cheessssey bombs, with or without my proposed changes, and share with us your yummy creations and thoughts on facebook or tag @whattobaketoday on instagram!

All blog posts and photos are properties of WhatToBakeToday (unless otherwise stated). Unauthorized use and/or duplication of these contents, whole or part thereof, without express or written permission from this blog's author is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to WhatToBakeToday with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. 

Crispy Oven-baked Chicken Wings

Who doesn't love deep fried chicken wings? Not me. I can eat them everyday if given a choice. But let's be honest... Deep fried food are not healthy and they should only be an occasional indulgence. Especially now, when I'm expecting, I find that a healthy diet is exceptionally important to one's overall well-being. 

Since the thing we love most about deep fried chicken wings is the skin, I sought out the best way to crisp up chicken wings in an oven!

Crispy Oven-baked Chicken Wings 

12 pcs    Chicken Wings
 2 tsp     Baking powder
 1 tsp     Salt 
 2 tsp     Rice flour
Pepper to taste

1. Pat dry the chicken wings. Mix all the dry ingredients together then add them to the chicken wings, try to coat them as evenly as possible and the best way to do so is with our hands.

2. Lay the chicken wings on a wired rack and place in fridge, uncovered, for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 120°C
3. Place the wired rack with the chicken wings on a lined baking sheet, and bake for 30 mins. 

4. Increase oven temperature to 220°C and bake for a further 30-40 mins, turning halfway through, till they are golden brown and crispy.

5. Remove chicken wings and if you can resist, let cool slightly before serving.

If you like this recipe and would like to share it, please link to this blog post with its original contents. All recipes are created by me (unless otherwise stated) and require a lot of effort and time to craft. Crediting back is the biggest form of encouragement for me! Thank you! =)

Thoughts: In a nutshell, this recipe works by drying out the moisture in the chicken wing's skin. Baking powder raises the pH level of the chicken which in turn breaks down the protein chain of the skin and allows it to crisp more than it usually does. And as most of you already know, adding rice flour to the mix will help with the crisping too. But most importantly is the step of drying out the chicken wings in the fridge. Water and oil are not friends! 

I have purposefully left this recipe as a basic one, only to be seasoned with salt and pepper. Because any seasoning, herbs or dry rub can be added, be as creative as you want! For this particular batch, I've only added a pinch of chili and garlic powder, and they were already super duper tasty. Can you believe both of us polished off all 12 chicken wings?! 😆

This is amazing for a unbattered chicken wing but I'm not going to lie, it pales in comparison to a deep fried and battered one. Whether it is fair to make such comparison? I'll leave that to you. Just note that like most deep fried food, these will lose its crispiness when it gets cold.

Otherwise, just listen to that crispy skin! It's like some beautiful food music to my ears. Simply irresistible! I'm quite happy to chomp on these every other week until I come up with some other alternatives.

Till then, share with us your crispy creations on facebook or tag @whattobaketoday on instagram! 

All blog posts and photos are properties of WhatToBakeToday (unless otherwise stated). Unauthorized use and/or duplication of these contents, whole or part thereof, without express or written permission from this blog's author is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to WhatToBakeToday with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. 

Lemon Garlic Salmon en Papillote

These days, as my tummy grows bigger, it's getting more and more tiring if I stay in the kitchen for too long. That's why it is an absolute blessing to have dinner prepped and cooked in under 20 mins.

Lemon Garlic Salmon en Papillote (serves 2)

2 pieces of Salmon Fillets, about 200g each
  20g    Garlic, sliced
    1      Lemon, sliced
    5g    Olive oil
salt and pepper to taste zest of 1 lemon
lemon wedges to serve

Optional: vegetables to include
Asparagus
Green beans
Cherry tomatoes, halved
Carrots, thinly sliced
Zucchini, thinly sliced
Bell peppers, julienned
Onions, sliced

Preheat oven to 220°C
1. Toss the vegetables that you're using in some olive oil, salt and pepper. 

2. Season the salmon fillets with salt and pepper.

3. Tear off 4 pieces of parchment paper, big enough to cover and wrap each piece of salmon fillet.

4. Take 1 piece of parchment paper and place 1/2 of the vegetables in the middle of the paper. Then place a few lemon and garlic slices on top of the vegetables before topping with a piece of the salmon fillet. Add a few more garlic slices on top of the fish and sprinkle with some lemon zest.

5. Cover the fish and vegetables with another piece of parchment paper. Then tightly crimp in the edges of both pieces of paper to seal the pouch. Repeat for the other pouch.

6. Transfer the pouches onto a baking tray and bake for 10-12 mins. Carefully cut open the pouches, they should be slightly puffed from the trapped steam. Serve immediately with a wedge of lemon.

If you like this recipe and would like to share it, please link to this blog post with its original contents. All recipes are created by me (unless otherwise stated) and require a lot of effort and time to craft. Crediting back is the biggest form of encouragement for me! Thank you! =)

Thoughts: "En Papillote" is just a fancy French term for "in parchment". It involves cooking food, usually fish and vegetables, using steam trapped in a pouch folded from parchment paper and/or aluminium foil. It's a very simple cooking technique, but one no less exciting as the pouch is usually cut open in front of guests, allowing the steam and aroma to escape at the table, providing a little sensory experience.

20 mins from prep to dinner. Hands down one of the simplest and fastest recipe till date. You can substitute salmon with other fish but I like salmon and they're packed full of omega 3-fatty acids that's good for our heart and brain. Especially for pregnant ladies since salmon is touted for helping with baby's brain development. 

To make this a complete meal, consider adding some of the suggested vegetables and cook everything together. That's the whole point of a quick recipe isn't it? 😜 You can use other vegetables too but those that require a longer time to cook (e.g. carrots, potatoes) should be sliced very thinly so that it finishes the same time as the fish.

Share with us your yummy creations on facebook or tag @whattobaketoday on instagram!

All blog posts and photos are properties of WhatToBakeToday (unless otherwise stated). Unauthorized use and/or duplication of these contents, whole or part thereof, without express or written permission from this blog's author is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to WhatToBakeToday with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.