Microwave Oven Cashew Brittle

I wanted to try and make something besides cookies and brownies so I decided to make some Brittle!

And since I already had Cashews at home, I thought Hey, why not?

And this recipe is easy enough for you to make it with your kids, or if you’re bored!

No need for a candy thermometer or the hassle!

Just as an FYI though, I would pam/butter anything you use to mix the ingredients or stir or spread out. Otherwise it’ll stick on there super fast!

Ingredients:

1 cup cashews (you can use up to 1 1/2 cups if you want)

1 cup white sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1 tablespoon butter

1 pinch salt

1 teaspoon vanilla-extract

1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:

1. You can grease the cookie sheet but I found it much easier to use parchment/wax paper instead. It cleans up a lot easier as well. So line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a glass bowl, combine the sugar, corn syrup and salt. You can mix it around a little so the corn syrup mixes in with the sugar. Microwave for 5 minutes.

3. Crush up some Cashews and mix them into the bowl after the initial 5 minutes in the microwave.

4. While waiting for it to microwave, combine the softened butter, vanilla and baking soda into a separate bowl. You can use a tiny bit more baking soda if you want to make it less hard and easier for children and elderly people to eat.

5. Get a wooden spoon or a metal spatula and cover it with butter or pam.

6. After the sugar mix is done microwaving, remove it carefully and quickly mix in the butter mixture. The whole thing will be foamy.

7. If you want an easier cleanup, you can also pam the side of the bowl from which you are going to pour the brittle from. Pour the mixture immediately onto the parchment paper lined cookie sheet.

8. Let cool for 15 minutes, or until set.

9. Break into pieces, store in an airtight container and enjoy!

Oh My Glob, like it’s Happy Valentine’s Day!

I hope everyone has a good Valentine’s Day or Single’s Awareness Day or what have you!

Or you can just have a regular Thursday, it’s up to you!

Either way, I’ve been having a fun couple of days baking goodies and sharing them with friends.

I’ve also been planning a lot of activities for when Eddie comes to visit for my Graduation! We’re going to do everything!

Shark cage tours! Kayaking! Parasailing! Jet skiing! Scuba Diving!

And so we both need to save some kind of money in order to do that so I told him,

“Whenever you want a drink, just say to yourself ‘Pirate’!”

There are some shipwreck scuba diving tours so I’m going to see if I can make that happen…

And so Eddie sent me this Valentine!

Although the more I look into it, I really do think we need to be certified…

Like I said, I’ll figure it out.

I got Mark a couple sweets but he got a little munch hungry so I gave them to him a little early…

Sooo…I went out and got a few more things for him that I know he’ll like.

Cute right? The bag I got at Walmart and the Japanese snacks I got from Nijiya on my way to school this morning.

I’m so glad they all fit in there. Yay!

And here’s my little Valentine’s Day outfit for today:

Decided to go a little school girl today, just because I thought it would be cute.

Still playing around with photo editor apps but it’ll work out eventually.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Hong Kong Egg Tart Recipe

Mark really liked the Egg Tarts when we were in Hong Kong so I thought, hey why not make them at home?

So I got my Nordic Ware Tartlette Baking Pan in the mail a couple days ago from Amazon so I thought it was the perfect time to try making some Hong Kong Style Egg Tarts at home!

So I looked for a recipe online but there were some things that I changed and will note in the recipe.

So this Tartlette pan is a little smaller than the average tart mold so please keep this in mind.

They were the perfect size for the egg tarts but the recipe online has slight variations and I’m sure this recipe works well with either the Tartlette mold that I have or the regular sized Tart molds.

So here are the ingredients needed:

Crust

• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup butter
• 1 eggs, beaten
• 1 dash vanilla extract

Filling

• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 9 eggs, beaten
• 1 dash vanilla extract
• 1 cup canned evaporated milk

And let me say this now, the portion for the filling is way too much. You do not need this much filling, especially if you are using the Tartlette mold like I was. I only needed a tiny fraction of what I ended up making overall.

You could use this new adjusted recipe for the filling and still make out okay.

• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup water
• 4-1/2 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 dash vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup and 2 tablespoons and 1 teaspoon evaporated milk

Don’t worry too much about the 1/2 egg and the precise measurements of the evaporated milk. A close enough amount will work just fine.

The directions also say that you have to sieve things but I didn’t have one, so I didn’t do it. So if you guys don’t have a sieve, don’t worry about it. My egg tarts turned out just perfectly without it.

Directions:

1. What I would do first is take the sugar for the filling and boil it with the water until the sugar is completely dissolved. Once it is dissolved take it off the stove and cool to room temperature. If you’re pretty fast at working through recipes I would put the dissolved sugar water either into the fridge or the freezer so that it cools down faster.

2. Next preheat your oven to 450 degrees F.

3. In a medium bowl, mix together the confectioners’ sugar and flour. Powdered sugar and Confectioner’s sugar is the same thing for those of you who weren’t sure. I had to double check at one point too…

4. Mix in butter with a fork until it is in small crumbs. Stir in the egg and vanilla until the mixture forms a dough. The texture should be slightly moist. Add more butter if it is too dry, or more flour, if the dough seems greasy. So butter usually comes in these small 1/2 cup packets and they were just the perfect amount for me. Just open up the sides, pop it in the microwave for about 10 seconds and then it should be soft enough to mix. Keep an eye on it, it shouldn’t melt but just in case.

5. Shape dough into 1 1/2 inch balls (or depending on pan size may have to adjust size), and press the balls into tart molds so that it covers the bottom, and rises up a little over the edges. You can basically mold/press it into the mold so that it takes shape of the crust. You can make it thicker/thinner depending on your preference. Works and tastes great either way. Use your fingers to shape the dough into the mold. And ladies, try to be delicate if you have longer nails, I know how it is.

6. Strain the eggs through a sieve, and whisk into the sugar mixture. Stir in the evaporated milk and vanilla. Strain the filling through a sieve, and fill the tart shells. And again like I said before, I did not use a sieve because I do not have one and they turned out just great anyways! So don’t stress too much about it otherwise! I just made sure to whisk everything really good. I used these small 5 fl oz cans of Nestle Carnation Evaporated Milk and it was just about perfect for the full filling recipe. 2 cans of these are a little more than 1 cup total. So if you are using the adjusted recipe one can should be more than enough!

7. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden brown, and the filling is puffed up a little bit. I ended up baking them for close to 19 minutes. You can check up on them but if you’re not sure how they are you can take an oven mitt and slightly shake the baking pan to see if the egg custard is still mostly liquid, which in that case you can give it a couple more minutes. If you see it puffing up, don’t be alarmed! It will settle down again and it will taste just as delicious!

And for those of you curious to see how much “filling” I had left over from the original recipe, here it is:

It was ridiculous how much I had left over! Shows me for using Jumbo eggs. Oh yeah, DON’T USE JUMBO EGGS!

It doesn’t affect the taste, just your sense of waste. Haha. The recipe for the dough was pretty spot on. I had a little more dough left over so I ended up making about 8 more egg tarts after the first batch. I didn’t really mind since I had so much filling left over.

And I had to face my never ending battle with saran wrap…but I swear, someday I will be victorious!

Does anyone still make saran wrap that still works? I swear it won’t stick onto any surface!

And after about 15-20 you should have some beautifully tasty Hong Kong style Egg Tarts!

Enjoy the recipe!