Recipe Sunday : Beer Battered Onion Rings

Due to the high volume of work at work (haha! duh~) and social obligations.. we haven't had the chance to properly upload anything. But fret not! Here's an early update of recipe sunday to take away your "ono!-weekend-its-gonna-end-soon" or "i-have-nothing-to-do-on-a-weekend" blues~ :D

Today, We're making Beer Battered Onion Rings or technically Stout Battered Onion Rings... Oolala! :3 

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Beer Battered Onion Rings
(makes a WHOLE lot)

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 can of beer/stout/ale of your choice 
1 large onion (really depends on the size of your onion)

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Directions:

Take 1/2 cup of flour and reserve for frying. 

Combine remaining flour with baking powder, cornstarch, salt and pepper. At this stage you can actually add any other flavor you'd like... like say, paprika? Its really by preference.

Whisk in your beer of choice (in our case, its Guinness... which smells absolutely HEAVENLY!) until smooth. You should end up with a consistency almost similar to your average pancake batter or thick cream. (Tip: Remember to use only beer that you like to drink normally as the taste and smell wiill affect the overall taste.)

Let sit somewhere warm while you slice the onions into rings. This will give the yeast in the beer time to react.

Heat oil.

Dip the onion into reserved flour (so that the batter will cling to it), into batter then into flour again. Fry for about 2 to 3 mins until golden brown (or deep golden brown in our case as the stout is super dark!). 

This will give you really ugly but huge, fluffy and super CRISPY onion rings! We have tried just dipping into flour and then into the batter as well. This gives us beautiful looking onion rings but its not as crispy and doesn't stay as crispy for a long time. Sooo.. forgo beauty, we say!!! haha!

And there you have it! 

Yummy fluffy deeeeeeelicious beer battered onion rings~! 

We had ours with malt vinegar and mayo and managed to polished off 1 and a half onions worth! Phew!

I hope you guys will try this or even use the beer batter for fish or seafood or whatever you fancy. Have fun and enjoy!! 

sunday recipe 3

we're really sorry for the lack of updates. we missed foto friday, recipe sunday and a whole week of updates! unfortunately for us, there are many things that we need to get done but we are going to promise more updates starting from this one! so cheer up! and here's a recipe we tried out a couple of weeks ago!

don't we all love pretzels? does anyone remember the old betty boop cartoon where the king buys a pretzel from a man and the little coin change sequence? i loved that cartoon! 

 

anyway, on with the recipe!

I am totally addicted to all sorts of breads and Pretzels are no exception! that yeasty soft and salty taste is just the right comfort food for me. this recipe makes about 6 large soft pretzels. these aren't the kind you get at auntie anne's though.

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Soft Pretzel
(makes 6 large)

Ingredients:

1 sachet (11g) yeast
1/2 tsp white sugar
1 cup warm water
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tbsp grapeseed oil (or olive oil/vegetable oil)
3/4 tsp salt

extra grapeseed oil for coating

soda bath ingredients:

1/4 cup baking soda 
1 1/2 cups hot water
salt to coat

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Directions:

In a small bowl, mix the yeast and 1/2 tsp sugar in the warm water. leave to work for at least 10 mins or until foamy.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, salt and 1/4 cup sugar. 

make a well and add the yeast mixture and oil. mix well and knead to form a dough. add 1 or 2 tsp of water if dough is dry. knead the dough till it becomes smooth.

Oil a large bowl and place the dough in. gently turn dough to coat with oil. cover the bowl with cling wrap and leave to rise until doubled in size or about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees celsius. 

Dissolve the baking soda in the hot water in a large bowl. 

when the dough has risen, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface or onto a length of parchment paper and divide the dough into 6 equal pieces. 

Roll each piece of dough into a long rope and twist it into the shape of a pretzel. if you can't picture the shape of a pretzel, imagine someone folding their arms  or placing your right hand on your left shoulder and vice-versa.  

(as you can see, ours didn't look very nice... lol..)

Dip each pretzel shape into the soda bath and place it on a greased or lined baking sheet. 

 

sprinkle generously with salt.

Lastly, bake in the preheated oven for 10 mins or until golden brown. 

i like it best when its eaten warm from the oven but if you want to save it for later, you can reheat it by placing it in a paper bag and misting it with water (do not let the bag get soaked) and placing it in a 250 degree celsius oven for a few mins. Be sure not to let the paper bag touch the coils in the oven or it'll catch on fire! 

Enjoy!

freebie iphone wallpaper

check out this awesome free alice in wonderland iphone wallpaper by the wonderfully talented Katie Kirk! also be sure to check out her etsy store full of lovely prints that i'd like to get my mitts on! 

Bugs and Fishes

(i think i'm slow but..) i've just discovered Laura's wonderful blog, "Bugs and Fishes by Lupin".
she makes the most beautiful flowers, cute critters and little treasures from felt. 

check out all her wonderful blog entries about her felt and wool works, sewing tutorials as well as her shop where you can get these lovely goodies!  

Recipe Sunday : Pancakes!

Hey there fellow spooners, its time for recipe sunday again and today its pancakes! 

I love watching food commercials on youtube for fun (what?! its my hobby! hahaha) and I was watching iHop adverts which made me craveeee pancakes! So we decided to make some! And if you haven't tried making pancakes from scratch, do it! Its so easy and you won't regret it. Also, imagine all the yummy toppings!!! mmm...

onwards to the recipe!

Pancakes
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Serves 8 light eaters or 4 BIG eaters (or in our case, 2 HUGE eaters! haha~)

Ingredients :

1 1/4 cups milk or buttermilk (you can substitute milk + 2 1/2 tbsp white vinegar)
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tbsp sugar or more to your taste
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten lightly
4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
optional splash of vanilla

Directions :

Mix all the dry ingredients together. 

Make a well in the middle of the mixture and pour in the egg, the melted butter and the milk. Mix well and let sit 10 mins.

Less milk can be used if you prefer a thicker pancake. (Here we have a thinner batter creating pancakes that are a little more like hotcakes from mcDs then iHop so it really is up to your preference.)

Ladle a scoop of the pancake batter onto a hot griddle or pan and don't pick at it! Let it sit and cook until you see bubbles all over the uncooked side of the pancake. Once all the bubbles appear, turn it over and cook the other side until it gets all lovely and brown. 

and serve! 

Yummy!

We slathered everything with margarine and honey and basically, we ate a serving meant for 8 between the two of us. :D

Really hope you try this out! :D

hooked on flea II!

hello everyone! we had a blast at "hooked on flea II"!

Many Thanks to everyone who came down to support us and to those who came over to check us out! we made some new friends and met some old ones too!



we have some left over items from the flea and will be selling them at our etsy store soon!
for those who have requested totes and rings, we will contact you as soon as possible! please do wait for our email. thanks!

Also, tomorrow is Recipe Sunday~ and we're making PANCAKES!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!

but not like this though (warning! contains profanity!) :


hahahaha! Alright seeya guys tmr!

freebies round up edition 1.

hi ya'll!

who doesn't love freebies? here's our freebies round up edition 1! 

 

 

 

 

 

(click images for download links)

"All you can eat paper buffet" from Pugly Pixel | "Turquoise, meet Gold" by Little Sightings | "1985" by blog.spoongraphics | "Pretty Parisian" by Wedding Style Guide | "DIY Printable Recipe Cards + Signs + Envelope Labels" by NONPAREIL Magazine

i love these freebies and i'm sure you'll be able to think of many uses for them! so Enjoy!! 
round 2 will be up soon! :D

happy goodies!

here's a sneak peak at some of the things we're getting ready to sell at the flea market this coming saturday, 29th of May at Home Club. 

There will be badges, tote bags, pins and many more! here's a few pics to quench your curious minds. 

   

 
(look! it's the wonderful Mr. Wolfgang Tillmans!)

 

the CraftySpoon x Squinty badges coming at ya!

so remember to make a note and come on down this weekend for the Flea!

(background photos from the fabulous Fantastic Man magazine!)

Recipe Sunday!

Sunday's almost over but fret not! We've got a lovely recipe for ya because we know food cures everythingggggg. (Including Monday blues... boohoo...)

Ok! So everybody loves pizza. But making a good pizza takes practice. We've tried making pizza dough from scratch before but it turned out to be rather hard to knead and not evenly cooked at all. Experimenting again, we've finally found the perfect one for us. 

Everyone has their own preference as to how thin they like the crust or how springy they like their dough. This is just our humble little version that you might like to try. :)

Pizza Dough
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Makes 2 large or 4 small pizzas

Ingredients :

1 tbsp honey
3 cups plain flour (also add semolina, wholemeal, etc. if desired)
1 cup warm water
1 (about 11gms) sachet yeast
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp grape seed oil (olive oil will do too!)

and of cos whatever toppings you so desire!

Directions :

In a bowl, mix water, yeast and honey. 
Leave for 5 to 10 mins to work or until mixture turns foamy.

Mix flour, salt and oil in a separate bowl.

Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the yeast mixture.

Slowly stir in the flour till dough comes together.

Flour both hands and pat into a ball.

Knead dough until it becomes smooth and springy!

Flour the top and cover with cling wrap and rest approximately 1 hour or until it doubles in size.

Separate into four and roll out on a floured (very imp!) surface. Using a rolling pin helps alot! Or if you dont have one like me.. use a wine bottle filled with water! (so its heavy enough.)

Roll out to your desired thickness.
We really like it thin and it comes out super duper wonderful! It doesn't have to be a perfect circle. Any rustic shape would do. And doesn't it add to the appeal of a handmade pizza? :D

Sprinkle generously with your favourite toppings. In this case, we used ricotta cheese, baby spinach, arugula mix and an onion marmalade. Mmmm. Also a drizzle of grapeseed oil!

Put pizza on an oiled pizza tray and into a preheated oven at 250 degrees celsius. In order for the crust to cook as evenly as the toppings, place it on the lowest rack. 

Bake for 15 to 20 mins or until crust is golden brown.

and VOILA! Yummy pizza! Hope you guys will try it out. yippie! :D

p.s (Layer dough on aluminium foil or parchment paper. Flour in between each layer and wrap the whole thing tightly in cling wrap to freeze for later use.)

Hey Fellow Spooners!

There will be a delightful little flea market event happening at the Home Club on the 29th and 30th of May (which is next week!). We will have a booth there on the 29th where we'll be collaborating with Squinty (who does totally awesome illustrations) and Cahoots (Jewellery) and selling 100% Handmade originals! There will also be 2nd hand and vintage stuff too! :D

Come on down and say hi!

Details of the flea market can be found below.

Hope to see you there!

p.s (product pictures coming soon! stay tuned.)

Foto Friday!

What better way to start off foto friday than to showcase two of my favourite artists - Pierre et Gilles! 

I came across Pierre et Gilles whilst I was still studying photography and absolutely fell in love with their works.

Pierre et Giles is Pierre Commoy and Gilles Blanchard who are romantic and artistic partners who have been living and working together since 1976. Their works are full of homoeroticism, symbolism, mythological and religious iconography. Often their works feature perfect looking ardonis' and gorgeous beauties.

Everything that is perfect comes with a price. In this case, the amount of hardwork that is done by Pierre and Gilles. Each print is painstakingly retouched and hand-colored to highlight every detail in order to create their dreamscape of an enchanted world. Pierre et Gilles are definitely two of the most influential artists of our time.

Truly deserving of our awe and respect.

Like Pierre et Gilles on Facebook

HELLO WORLD!!!

Welcome to our newly renovated (and still upgrading) blog!

YAY!!!!! *insert generic children cheering*

Here we will showcase our food recipes and craft ideas regularly or at least when time permits. :)

We really hope you like it here. Enjoy and leave us many comments!