Benton #2

Bento is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. And it is still common for Japanese homemakers to spend considerable time and energy producing an appealing boxed lunch. Recently a few of my blogger friends and I are sort of into the Bento craze, we are so impressed by a few of the bento bloggers and we also start to try preparing our own lunch bento.


For the start of the week which is a Monday, I choose something easy, sweet and colourful to brighten up the week. Reyon and I are very excited about preparing this bento lunch. After making the Chocolate Fudge Brownie, we starts to source for a suitable box, the shape of Onigiri mould, the fried rice ingredients and etc. I wrapped the fried rice Onigiri with either Fish Floss or Sandwich Cheese then decorate with Nori sheet. And this is the 2nd time that I have prepared bento to work, the very first round is making the Mini Pooh Bento Box for my colleagues as snacks.

This show a cross section of my Fish floss fried rice Onigiri. I packed my lunch bento with 2 fried rice onigiri, 2 square cubes of chocolate fudge brownies and some prunes wedges. Although it's a very simple lunch bento but I think it is definitely more healthier than those outside food.

For More Details:
1. Check it up @ My Bento Collection Site

Dual Chocolate Fudge Brownies

Although I love to eat brownies but then I don't really make it at home because I knew that it's not really easy to make a good, moist and chewy brownies using home ingredients. But after hearing my friend Tracy mentioning about her homemade chocolate brownies being wipe off the tray by all her family memebers, I decided to try out the recipe that she gave me. Everything went on perfectly except that because I am using the rectangle brownies tin and maybe due to my oven temperature(mine is fan forced oven) the interior part of the brownies is too dry and crumbs like you see from the above picture.

But this does not affect the overall taste of the brownies as it is still very fragrant and full of chocolate taste. From the recipe that Tracy given to me, I use Grand Marnier instead of Vanilla Essence and I also add in grated orange rinds from one orange. The combination of chocolate and orange really makes the brownies extra fragrant and tastier.

Reyon and I love this little treats and he insists to try it out after it had being cool from the oven tray while we are preparing for tomorrow bento ingredients. Thank you tracy for sharing this wonderful recipe with us dispite that I had made some error on the baking time....... :)

Ingredients:
250g Butter, melted
1 1/4 Cup Sugar
1 Teaspoon Grand Marnier
4 Eggs
1 1/3 Cup Flour
1/2 Cup Cocoa Powder
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt
1 Grated Orange Rinds
125g Dark Chocolate, roughly chopped
100g White chocolate, for topping(optional)

Methods:
1. Put the butter in a microwave safe bowl and melt it on high 2 minutes, pause to stir after each minute.
2. Sift all the flour ingedients and salt together and set aside.
3. Next add in the sugar to the melted butter and stir till the sugar almost melted and gluey.
4. When the sugar mixture is cool off, add in the egg one by one and whisk until well combine.
5. Next stir in the flour mixture into the egg mixture till well combine.
6. Add in the orange rinds and chopped dark chocolate and stir till combine then pour into a square or rectangle brownie tin.
7. Bake in a preheat 180 degree oven and bake for about 20 - 30 minutes depend on the tin size.
8. The brownie will pull away from the sides of the pan and when test with a skewer, it will be a bit moist inside.
9. Cool. Cut into bars.

Notes:
a) I used 1 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup castor sugar
b) If using those black coated baking tin, you have to reduce baking time by 5 - 10 minutes.

Benton #2

Bento is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. And it is still common for Japanese homemakers to spend considerable time and energy producing an appealing boxed lunch. Recently a few of my blogger friends and I are sort of into the Bento craze, we are so impressed by a few of the bento bloggers and we also start to try preparing our own lunch bento.


For the start of the week which is a Monday, I choose something easy, sweet and colourful to brighten up the week. Reyon and I are very excited about preparing this bento lunch. After making the Chocolate Fudge Brownie, we starts to source for a suitable box, the shape of Onigiri mould, the fried rice ingredients and etc. I wrapped the fried rice Onigiri with either Fish Floss or Sandwich Cheese then decorate with Nori sheet. And this is the 2nd time that I have prepared bento to work, the very first round is making the Mini Pooh Bento Box for my colleagues as snacks.

This show a cross section of my Fish floss fried rice Onigiri. I packed my lunch bento with 2 fried rice onigiri, 2 square cubes of chocolate fudge brownies and some prunes wedges. Although it's a very simple lunch bento but I think it is definitely more healthier than those outside food.