Graham Toffee Coffee Cake

A basic coffee cake that you can tailor to your needs.

Ingredients:

Batter:

3 Eggs

1 1/2 cups of Sugar

1/4 cup of Vegetable Oil

1 cup of Water

2 cups of Flour

3 1/2 tsp of Baking Powder

1 tsp of Salt

Crumb Mix:

1 cup of Graham Cracker Crumbs

1/2 cup of Brown Sugar

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 cup melted Butter

1/2 cup of Skor bits

1/2 cup of Chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Beat together the eggs, sugar and oil until light and fluffy.  When well mixed add in the water.  In a seperate bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt.  Add that to the wet ingredients and mix well.

Combine the first four ingrediants for the crumb mix in a seperate bowl.

Line a 9x9 pan with parchment paper or (if your adventurous)  use a greased 10" spring-form pan.
  Pour half the batter into the pan.  Sprinkle in half the crumb mix, all the Skor bits & chocolate chips.  Pour in the other half of the batter and then top with the rest of the crumb mix.

Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

The Twist:

This is really a coffee cake that you can do anything with.  You can replace the Skor bits and chocolate chips or add more.  Feel like some fruit?  Go ahead, a half cup of any chopped fruit works well though I recommend you put it on top.  How about nuts?  Sure no problem.  Another fun addition is to take caramel or chocolate ice cream topping and make a lattice across the top of the cake once it's cooled.  Replace the vegetable oil with peanut oil for a little flavour boost.  Of course if you do that remember to tell anyone you share with, it's embarrassing to accidentally poison someone.  This recipe is ripe for experimentation: what will you try?

Pho Stock

This is my recipe for Pho, my favourite Vietnamese noodle soup.

Ingredients:

Broth:

4 lbs smoked ham bones

4 qts water

1 Tbs vinegar

1 inch fresh ginger sliced

1 tsp anise seed

2 1/2 Tbs fish sauce

2 tsp salt

2 green onions sliced

8 white mushrooms sliced

Directions:

First note the water is approximate, if you have some more room in your pot you can add in a bit more water but don't exceed 5 qts.

Well this isn't a difficult recipe just a time consuming one.  Put everything in a large pot.  Bring it to a boil then let simmer 6 to 8 hours.  Remove the bones from the stock.  If you'd like to reduce the fat then refrigerate the stock and scoop the fat off once it hardens.

The Twist:

Okay so you have your stock what do you put in it?  Well there's no hard and fast rule so I'll list out various things I like to put in my pho.  Whenever you are serving Pho assemble it by the bowl then laddle on some boiling stock.  By the time it cools enough to eat everything will be cooked perfectly.

What to put in Pho:

rice noodles (you pick what type but be sure to pre cook them to el denté)

beansprouts

fresh basil

fresh cilantro

green onion

more mushrooms

thinly sliced top sirloin beef

bok choy

broccoli stem

lime wedge

Hoisin sauce

Sriracha sauce