Vondelicious!

IT'S CHRISTMAS!!! Mango Mousse Chocolate 'Gingerbread' House Cake

2011-12-25T23:37:00.000+11:00

It's finally Christmas!

I'd like to wish everyone a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! Stuff yourselves silly with food, wrap your selves in tinsel, belt out as many Christmas carols as you can possibly think of...... and have a great time ;)

Can you sense my excitement??

To celebrate, I finally made a Christmas-themed gingerbread house cake!! The design was intended to be a little more elaborate, but I've been extremely busy over the past week and have only managed to just finish the cake so this'll have to do.....

The 'gingerbread' house and trees are actually made up of chocolate cookies, stuck together with white chocolate (I don't like spiced cookies), but the highlight of this creation was definitely the mango mousse- one of the best mango mousse recipes I've tried (though I've only tried three).

Unfortunately, I won't be able to share the recipe with you yet, as I am now on holidays and I didn't manage to write down the recipe before I left. I probably won't be able to do a proper post for another month or so either, as I'll be a little busy holiday-ing, so have a great Christmas and New Year! :)

See you all again next year!

Cigar Cookies

2011-12-20T23:44:00.000+11:00

As I write this post now, I have the smell of coffee stuck in my nose. You see, I've recently purchased a coffee machine and have been busy coming up with coffee-like concoctions and forcing them down my family's throats.

Just kidding. My coffee isn't that bad (I don't think).

I don't really like coffee (nor do I drink it), so it may seem a little strange that I have a coffee machine, especially since there are about a billion kitchen appliances which I really wish I had. But I've always fancied the idea of making my own frothy milk, even if I don't like froth, and making cute pictures on coffee......though it may be quite a while til I figure that out.

But because of this machine, I now proper coffee in the house, for the first time ever. And this means that I will no longer have to take pictures with empty coffee cups in the background- or even as the subject, as I did with these photos.

Woops?

Anyways, the real subject of the photo is, of course, the cookies, which are actually from an ice cream cone recipe I found off Adriana's blog. I've wanted an ice cream cone maker (the waffle type) for ages, because I absolutely love eating waffle ice cream cones, but since they don't really sell them in shops anymore, I was quite excited to find that you could still make ice cream cones at home!

Of course, I was a bit too lazy to roll them into nice cone shapes, and I'd intended on eating them by themselves anyway, so I shaped mine into cigars and made them smaller instead. They were light and crisp, just as I'd expected, and so delicious we pretty much finished the whole batch in a day. I'll definitely be making ice cream cones next time I make ice cream! :)

Cigar Cookies
Adapted from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop via Bittersweet Baker

1/4 cup (60 ml) egg whites (about 2 large egg whites)
7 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon (90 g) sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup (90 g) flour
2 tablespoons (30 g) unsalted butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Combine the egg whites, sugar, and vanilla in a small bowl. Stir in the salt and half of the flour. Mix in the melted butter, then stir in the rest of the flour until smooth.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Use a small offset spatula to spread 2 level tablespoons of batter into a circle with a diameter of 6″/15cm (I made mine smaller).Tracing circles onto the underside of the parchment will give you more even cones.

Bake one sheet (two cones) at a time (I baked ~4-6 cookies at a time since mine were smaller). Start checking after 10 minutes, but depending on your oven, the baking time will be 10-15 minutes. The cookies will be golden brown throughout, with some lighter and darker spots.

Pull the sheet out of the oven and run a thin metal spatula under a circle to loosen the edges. Quickly flip it over and roll it into a cigar shape. Let the cookie cool slightly on the mold until it keeps its shape, then let it cool completely in a tall glass. Roll the other cone (if the cookie has cooled too much to roll, return the sheet to the oven for a minute.)

Continue to bake and roll cones with the remaining batter.

Sushi wow, Parramatta

2011-12-18T22:16:00.000+11:00

Fried Moneybags $3

The last time I ate out at a sushi train with my friends was at J.J Sushi, more than two years ago- a day I remember quite well because we were supposed to be studying for exams, but instead spent shopping and eating. Though I happen to be in Parramatta a lot, I don't frequent this area much, so by the time I found out that J.J Sushi had been replaced, it had already been old news.

We decide to drop in here one afternoon, to see what the new restaurant is like. The whole restaurant has undergone a considerable amount of renovation, making its interior a lot more modern looking, though we notice the conveyor, the kitchen and plates are still the same as they used to be.

Seaweed Salad Sushi $2.50

It's also considerably busier, and by the time we arrive, the place is packed, making it difficult to seat our group of 4, especially as the restaurant is quite small in the first place. After a bit of waiting, and much apologising by the friendly staff, we eventually get to sit down on the sushi train,which is filled with plenty of choices. We start with the seaweed salad sushi, a simple favourite of ours, which is done well.

Chicken Katsu and Avocado Nigiri $3.50

With the amount of people eating here, the sushi conveyor is constantly refilled with new dishes, so that most of the fried foods are still warm when you get them, like the chicken katsu and avocado nigiri. The generously large piece of chicken katsu is nice and crispy and tastes great with the avocado and slightly sweet and tangy sauce.

Croquette $3

I'll be honest- I'm not completely sure what this is (which also happened to be the reason I took it), but since it's fried, made out of potato and veggies (mostly onion), croquette is the only thing I can think of ;) The croquette was quite soft, but was a little on the bland side, though that was easily fixed by pouring over the barbecue-like sauce over it!

Prawn Tempura Udon $6.50

Whilst the prices are quite cheap for a sushi train, I'm one of those people who needs to eat a whole pile of dishes before getting full so I turn to the menu for something a little more satiating. Their a la carte menu is quite small but very reasonable priced, with most items under $7.

My friend orders the prawn tempura udon, which comes in a cute clay pot and is also served with a vegetable tempura, mainly made up of onion slices. Unfortunately, the prawn tempura came already sitting in the broth, making the skin very soggy.

Terriyaki Chicken Don $6.90

There is no terriyaki chicken sushi on the sushi conveyor so my friend chooses the terriyaki chicken don instead, which she enjoyed. All the rice dishes on the menu also come with a miso soup, so it was pretty good value.

Karrage Chicken Don $6.90

I order the Karrage Chicken Don, freshly fried chicken with a squiggle of mayonnaise-like sauce, served with rice and salad. The chicken deliciously hot and crispy, and I loved the combination of tasty chicken with the tangy sauce. Karrage Chicken is available on the sushi conveyor (from memory, $3.50 dish), but I prefer eating it with rice.

I am a little disappointed that the restaurant doesn't serve Japanese cheesecake like the previous one, and the only dessert option is ice-cream, of which there are three different flavours (green tea,sesame and mango). We decide to head elsewhere for dessert, but I was quite satisfied with our cheap(ish) lunch!

Chocolate Macarons

2011-12-12T21:18:00.000+11:00

Is there ever a time when time doesn't pass faster than it seems?

It's been a almost a month since my holidays started. A whole month.

I know I always say time passes too quickly, but I can't help it when I look at the calendar and it's been another month but there's still about 10 things that I was meant to do that month which I didn't even get time to think about (for instance, blogging more than twice a month?).

Before I know it, it'll be Christmas!

I feel like I should be doing more in preparation for Christmas since it's my favourite time of the year- like listening to more Christmas songs, starting to make Christmas themed foods or going to more Christmas events. Instead, I'm spending my holidays doing what I normally do- going out with friends, baking (and blogging), watching TV and just relaxing. It's quite busy actually!

Ever since the beginning of the holidays, there has not been a day when there has not been a bowl of left over egg whites, yolks or cream in the fridge. I'll admit that I do tend to leave stuff in the fridge for longer than they should be in there (I don't bake that much) but I am baking a bit more than usual, in hopes of catching up on my lack of baking this year and to get through my list of 'to try' recipes.

Like most bloggers, I usually attempt a recipe only once or twice, not because they don't turn out great, but because I simply don't have enough time, nor the stomach space, to try all the new recipes I want to and to make things over and over again. Macarons are something I've only attempted once, but they don't completely fit in this category because the reason I haven't made them again is not because I had other things to make, but rather, out of laziness (of having to age the egg whites and making almond meal) and fear of failure.

If anyone has been following my blog for long enough, you may remember that the last (and first) time I made macarons was a whole two years ago, when I first started this blog- a rather surprisingly successful attempt too, which I have always considered a fluke. I didn't know what a macaron really was or how it was supposed to taste, so I had my second surprise when my sister bought me a macaron and we found it tasted exactly the same as the ones I'd made!

I'd expected my second attempt to be a failure, so I was surprised again, as they actually turned out macaron looking- I'm thinking it's more because of the recipe than my 'skills' ;) They're far from perfect though, especially since they're lumpy and not nice and round, due to my lack of piping bag and piping tip. But they still tasted great though, which is, of course, the most important thing!

Chocolate Macaron Recipe
The original recipe can be found here

3 egg whites (preferabbly 'aged' egg whites)
50 g granulated sugar
200 g icing mixture (minus 2 Tb)
110g almonds
2 Tb cocoa powder

1. In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites to a foam, gradually add the sugar until you obtain a glossy meringue. Do not overbeat your meringue or it will be too dry and your macarons won't work.
2. Combine the almonds, cocoa powder and powdered sugar in a food processor and give them a good pulse until the nuts are finely ground. Pass through a sieve.
3. Add them to the meringue, give it a quick fold to break some of the air and then fold the mass carefully until you obtain a batter that flows like magma or a thick ribbon. Give quick strokes at first to break the mass and slow down. The whole process should not take more than 50 strokes. Test a small amount on a plate: if the tops flattens on its own you are good to go. If there is a small beak, give the batter a couple of turns.
4. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip with the batter and pipe small rounds (1.5 inches in diameter) onto parchment paper baking sheets.
5. Preheat the oven to 300F. Let the macarons sit out for an hour to harden their shells a bit and bake for 8-10 minutes, depending on their size. Let cool. If you have trouble removing the shells, pour a couple of drops of water under the parchment paper while the sheet is still a bit warm and the macarons will lift up more easily do to the moisture. Don't let them sit there in it too long or they will become soggy. Pipe or spoon some ganache on one shell and sandwich with another one.

Ganache
1 cup milk chocolate
1/2 cup heavy cream

In a heavy saucepan over medium high heat, bring the cream to a boil. Remove from the heat, drop in the milk chocolate and let stand a couple of minutes. Gently stir the chocolate into the cream until smooth. Set aside until it cools down and thickens a bit (a trip to the fridge is ok)

Platform 7 Cafe, Sydenham

2011-12-08T13:52:00.000+11:00

My experience with cafe breakfasts is minimal not only because I can never wake up on time, but also because I tend to go for the lunch menu items than the breakfast ones! So when the lovely people from Food Morning invited me to try out the all-day breakfast menu at Platform 7 cafe, I was only too happy to take on the offer.

The cafe is small and cosy, and by the time we arrive, it's already half full, making it a little difficult to seat our table of three (I've brought my parents along). The service is great though, and table is quickly cleared for us.

Caffè latte

I'm told that their coffees (Allpress) are great, and to be honest, I was a little afraid that I wouldn't have much to comment on, since I probably can't tell the difference between a good coffee and a bad one. My mum is not much of a coffee drinker either, but she enjoyed her caffe latte very much, claiming it to be one of the best coffees she's had.

Mocha

My mocha is quite a sight, with its beautiful drizzle of chocolate sauce over the top (which happened to end up all over my fingers!). Since I'm not too fond of coffee, I tend to like my mochas on the sweet and chocolatey side. This mocha was not particularly sweet or chocolatey, but the coffee wasn't too bitter and was actually so good that I managed to enjoy it without the need to add extra sugar like I usually do!

Orange Juice

We are also served orange juice, which are beautifully coloured (my mum thought it looked like mango juice). It's deliciously light and fresh, not surprisingly since it's freshly squeezed.

Spinach and Fetta Scrambled Eggs and Toast $10.50

It doesn't take us long to decide what to order, since the menu is not too extensive. We go for the Spinach and fetta scrambled egg, which are deliciously creamy and fluffy. We didn't really notice the taste of feta. though that's just as well as my parents aren't too fond of cheese. I was a little bit disappointed with their sourdough toast, as I would have preferred thick cut.

P7 breakfast $13

But the star of the show is definitely the P7 breakfast which easily wins over the scrambled eggs with its ginormous portion size, leaving us very satiated- and quite satisfyingly so. The double fried eggs are done perfectly, as are the field mushrooms, which are incredibly tasty. Our favourite component of this breakfast was definitely the bacon, which had a good amount of fat, wasn't too salty and best of all, fried until very crispy- we usually cut away the fat of bacon before eating, but we had to make an exception this time and did not leave a single bit behind!

If all cafe breakfasts are as good as this, I really need to get out and eat more breakfasts!

Von dined as a guest of Platform 7 Cafe and Food Morning

Kitty Cat Sushi

2011-12-04T20:19:00.000+11:00

I hate the feeling of going backwards.

Not physically, though I hate that as well (have i told of the story of how I got motion sickness after sitting facing the wrong way on a sushi train?), but as in the opposite of improving. We've been making a lot of sushi of all different types lately- simple salmon nigiri, California rolls, tuna rolls and whatever else we felt like rolling up or squeezing into balls. Try as hard as I may, all my rolls still end up loose and lopsided like they've always been :(

Okok, so I actually only personally made 2 rolls by myself- a little more practice may help ;)

What I'm really talking about is my progress with decorative sushi.

I used the leftover rice and nori to make this cat shaped sushi (a design from the same book as last time). I coloured it with sesame seeds for the black, tomato sauce for the orange (tomato flavoured canned tuna was my original plan, but I didn't want to open a can of tuna just for this one roll) and also for the supposedly pink area around the mouth, since I couldn't be bothered finding something pink.

Now, you would have thought I'd have at least some idea of how to place and space the different components after my first attempt at decorative sushi, but nup- I managed to do worse than last time! At first I placed too much rice on the base, so I had to take it all off and start again. Then, I accidentally put the nose on the eyes instead of the mouth (as you can probably see in the pictures)....which would have been fine if I were making a human!

Luckily, decorative sushi is quite forgiving, and even if it doesn't look quite like what you had hoped, some massaging of the cut sushi and addition of features makes it look great again! But I was still disheartened at the fact that my sushi making 'skills' seem to be worsening more than improving!

On a more positive note, I did manage to take a couple of shots whilst I was making it, so I can look back before I attempt anything again....and if you want to make it too! Let's just hope that my sushi making skills don't go backward and further!

Kitty Cat Sushi

If you are attempting this, please read the complete instructions before starting as I don't really explain things very well ;)

For one roll of sushi, you will need

a little more than one piece of nori
Some sushi rice (the book has some but I don't use exact measurements)
Something Black eg. Black Sesame Powder
Something Orange eg. canned tuna (tomato flavoured)
Something Pink eg. pickled ginger
Kombu or Something dark brown eg soy sauce

1. First, you want to cut up your nori:
once in half- this will form the big piece of nori which wraps around the outside of the sushi roll
Cut the other half of the seaweed into four equal pieces (not lengthwise to make four long strips but the other way to make the shape in the picture below)
2. Then you want to colour your rice- do this by mixing some rice with whatever you're using to colour your rice in a bowl. For each of the colours, you'll only need about 2 large tablespoons of rice.

Now we can start shaping:

First, we make mini rolls using the small pieces of nori we cut up before (each should be 1/8th of the size of the original piece of nori). Place a small amount of rice on the edge or the nori and roll it up to make a thin roll.You will need 3 rolls of white rice and one roll of pink (for the mouth). Make two of the white rolls smaller than the white and the pink by using less rice and rolling up tightly (you could even only use half of the 1/8th sheet but that would be harder to roll up).

Because the nose is smaller, we make need to make a thinner roll. To do this, the book tells us to use a sheet of kombu onto the nori (again, using the 1/8th size one) and roll it up tightly. Since I didn't have kombu, I coloured some rice brown and spread a very thin layer across the nori and rolled it up tightly- it doesn't look as great, but it'll do.

Slice one of the white rolls and the pink rolls in half

Place the half sheet of nori onto your sushi mat, lengthwise as we will be rolling 'sideways'. Spread some white, orange and black rice onto the nori in the pattern shown in the picture above. Make sure that the width of the black and orange stripes is the same as those of the semicircle rolls you made above. The white stripe in the middle should also be the same width.

Place the two white semicircle rolls facing upwards onto the red and black lines.Fill the area between them with white rice and then place another layer of rice above this. (obviously, I didn't put the layer of rice on in the picture above, so the nose ended up on the eyes....)

Place the dark brown 'nose' roll in right in the centre of the layer of rice.

Place both of the pink semicircles on top of the 'nose' facing downwards as shown. Then put a layer of rice over and around that so that t middle bit is a bit like a round mountain of rice.

Roll up the sushi using the mat then slice it up with a sharp knife. If you need to, give the sushi a bit of a massage to get it into the right shape.

Cut thin strips of nori and place them on the sushi to make whiskers.

Using the two small white rolls from before, cut each into the same thickness as the cat sushi for the ears. Place two ears on each cat sushi. You're done!

Note: I was having trouble with making clean cuts on my sushi last time but had much more success this time thanks to Ann's tip of moistening the knife with a mixture of water and vinegar and Shen's tip of cutting quickly with one stroke and wiping the sticky stuff away. Thanks so much!

Golden Treasures Seafood Restaurant

2011-12-02T18:20:00.000+11:00

lol.

Granville RSL doesn't bring any great food memories- the last (and only) time I was here to dinner was years ago, back when the restaurant was a buffet. Cheap and cheerful, it attracted hoardes of mostly Asian and old people but the food, as I remember it, was quite terrible- the only highlight for me was the hot chocolate from their coffee machine.

The buffet is gone now, and in its place is Golden Treasures Seafood restaurant which, to some extent, keeps with the cheap theme with its discounted yum cha lunches which still attracts many (mostly Asian) locals here on the weekend. The decor is not the most interesting and reminants of the old buffet still remain- there's a bright neon dessert sign just above the entrance to the kitchen and a drinks bar on the side, which is quite lonely as you would expect since the restaurants serves tea to its diners.
.

Lobster with E-Fu moodles

We're here for dinner, and more specifically, to try out their daily dinner specials which we had previously noticed when dining here at lunch (for their yum cha). We are disappointed to find that they have since removed those offers, instead, replacing them with less interesting 'weekly specials' (i.e. available every single day of the week).

The lobster is the only thing on the specials menu which really captures out attention, but mostly because of it's price. At $68, the lobster is cheap, even if a little small (900g) but of that is, of course, expected. The dish does its job in satisfying those lobster cravings, but we find the overall flavours of the dish a little bland, and lacking in lobster taste.

Sweet and Sour Pork

I have claimed that I haven't come across a sweet and sour pork that I don't like, and at first, this wasn't an exception, with its crispy fried batter covered in the usual bright red, sweet and sour sauce. A little mediocre but enjoyable all the same.After a few bites later however, one starts to notice something isn't quite right with this dish............Where is the meat?

The ratio of batter to pork is much too high and each piece of deceivingly ordinary looking fried pork only contains a tiny small piece of meat. Which might not be the biggest problem to batter lovers (*ahem* me) until 10 minutes later, when you're left with sad pieces of soggy batter which no-one likes eating.

5 Flavoured Duck

The menu is also quite entertaining and great for a laugh (only if you can read chinese). I suspect that it was not written by a chef though, as the names do nothing to tell you what the dish actually is.

The 5 Flavoured Duck is another nicely priced dish though its name does not reveal much about the actual flavours of the dish. The duck (or rather half a duck) looks promising, with its deep colours and tasty looking sauce- even if the dish looks a bit like more like duck carcass. We are disappointed however, to find that the intriguing idea of the '5 flavours' is not present in the duck and even the most basic flavour, the flavour of duck, can barely be noted. Instead, the dark pool of sauce overwhelms all other flavours (even without having dipped the duck in it) and to me, tastes more like an overly sweet soy sauce than anything.

Seafood and Tofu Pot

The seafood and tofu hot pot is a relatively generous serving of seafood in the form of prawns and squid lightly tossed with come fried tofu and veggies- it is quite enjoyable, though not amazing.

Stir Fried Pork Neck with Cloud Ears and Nagaimo

The (rather pushy) waitress recommends this dish to us, as fresh nagaimo is not often available. This is the first time I've tried fresh nagaimo- a curious ingredient I've read about on blogs (I'm told that I've also had the dried version in some chinese soups). This dish is quite tasty, and the pork neck very tender but the highlight of the dish is the nagamio, which has an interesting, slightly crunchy texture (which reminds me of water-chestnut) and is great at absorbing the flavour of the sauce.

Beef Ribs in Black Bean Sauce (牛仔骨)

The beef ribs are a generous serving, and interestingly served in a deep clay pot, keeping the dish hot. Overall, I quite liked this dish. as I love beef ribs, and I liked the depth of flavour of the black bean sauce. The ribs however, are a little too soft and tender- a sign that they have been tenderised with baking soda.

Red Bean Soup

Of course, no dinner at a chinese restaurant is complete without the finishing complimentary fruits and dessert. Along with a plate of oranges and kiwifruit, we are served a red bean soup which has a surprisingly smooth and silky texture- it's so delicious it may perhaps be the highlight of this meal.

Walnut Cookies

The walnut cookies are quite a funny sight. with each cookie being a different colour. Luckily, the over/underbaking doesn't have too much effect on the taste and texture of the cookie, and they are quite light and crispy- a great way to end the meal! Now, if only the mains were as good as the complimentary desserts!

Bear Cake

2011-11-26T19:13:00.000+11:00

Sometimes I'm just too good at putting things off.....

....and completely forgetting about them.

Replying texts, facebook messages or emails is the first thing which comes to mind, closely followed by chores which I promise my mum I'd do (sorry mum!). And it's not just things I don't particularly like doing- this bear cake is a rather embarrassing example of this, as I'd promised my sister I'd make this cake for birthday..............2 birthdays ago!

Woops?

I've been thinking of the reasons why it's taken me so long to finally get around to making this cake and I still can't completely explain why. It's not because I didn't want to make this cake, or that I had better things to make.............. it just never ended up happening

I'm thinking that it may have partly been because of the effort I know it would require- though the design is quite simple, it's still more complex than just baking a cake and eating it as is (hence the lack of iced and decorated cakes on this blog). I've been quite lazy this year, and have often found myself ambitiously planning to bake some time consuming things over the weekend, only to give up from lack of motivation when the weekend comes rolling around.

I guess it's sort of like the reason I don't blog that often- though I love it, it takes a lot of effort for me to write up a post. I was never any good at writing anything, and it takes a lot of deleting, writing and deleting before I can come up with something I wouldn't mind sharing with others.

Sometimes I think of how much easier it would be if I just posted pictures and a recipe. I'd certainly have a lot more posts on my blog right now.

But that wouldn't' be as fun, would it?

Despite my slow progress, I have finally reached the milestone of 100 posts today. Ok, so maybe I may have cheated a little bit and also included my first ever 'hello' post (which consists of 3 sentences) in the count. And, it may come after 2 years and 3 months of blogging (yes, I'm well aware that most people reach this milestone before, or within close proximity of their 1st blogiversary). But hey, I got there ;)

And like my second blogiversary, I'm celebrating with chocolate cake. From the exact same recipe, to be exact. This delicious beetroot chocolate cake has become my go-to recipe for chocolate cake- it's moist and chocolatey like mudcake, but with the subtle, underlying natural sweetness of beetroot. I know everyone already has their favourite chocolate cake recipe, but if you're ever looking for a new one to try, I'd strongly recommend this one.

The design for this cake is taken from the 'naughty bear' cake at 85 degrees cake shop. It caught my attention, not because I thought it was particularly interesting design (when compared to the other beautiful cakes the bakery produces), but because of its simplicity- I was pretty sure I could pull off something like this at home.And so I showed it to my sister, who liked it as well and promised her I'd make it for her birthday.........

The original cake was sponge cake and was covered in chocolate shavings but I thought my sister would like this cake better. I couldn't be bothered making chocolate shavings to cover this cake, so I covered it with cake crumbs instead- an idea I got from Zoe's blog (my cake looks quite similar to hers....don't you think?). I personally think it looks better than the chocolate shavings because it makes the bear look more 'furry'.....or is that just my imagination?

Well, it's still months from my sister's next birthday (I guess I'll have to try harder to be on time next time!!), but I think all was forgiven once this cake was made- my family thought it looked and tasted great! I immediately received requests to make it again, since the 15cm cake was quickly devoured, and my sister even wanted me to teach her how to make it :)

And in case you were wondering, we couldn't bear to cut its face into pieces.....

So we took its facial features off first!! ;)

'Naughty Bear' Chocolate Cake Recipe

For the cake
adapted from Veggie Belly
Original Recipe from Ross Burden

makes a 15cm cake

60g dark chocolate
2 medium eggs
200g sugar
100ml sunflower or vegetable oil
60ml milk
200g cooked and pureed beets
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
20g cocoa powder
130g flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Pre heat oven to 350 f.

2. Melt the chocolate (for the cake) over a double boiler. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar and oil. Slowly add the cooked milk, beet puree , the melted chocolate and vanilla into the egg mixture. Beat just untill combined.

3. Sift the cocoa, flour, baking soda and salt. Add this to the beet batter. Fold just untill everything is combined. Dont over work or over mix the batter.

4. Spread a teaspoon of butter or oil over the surface of a 15cm cake pan. Sprinkle some flour all over, and tap out the excess. Pour the cake batter into the prepared cake tin. Bake for about 45 minutes, or till a tooth pick or skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Baking time may vary depending on the pan and oven you are using. (mine took around 1.5 hours)

5. When the cake is done, cool it on a wire rack.

For the chocolate ganache
150g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
150ml heavy cream

1. Place the chocolate in a bowl. Heat the cream in a sauce pan, just till it starts to barely boil. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and whisk till it forms a smooth sauce. Chill in the fridge until spreadable.

Assembly

1. Slice off the top of the cake using a knife, to create a flat surface
2. Using the cake scraps, process them in a blender to create fine crumbs.
3. Place the base layer on a plate and cover with ganache. Cover with the second layer and spread the remaining ganache over the top and sides of the cake.
4. Sprinkle the cake crumbs of the top and sides of the cake to completely cover the icing
5. Place chocolate decorations (eyes, mouth etc) onto the cake :P

Note: For the eyes, I used chocolate buttons and spread some (melted) white chocolate onto them.
For the nose/mouth, I used an egg ring to mould a white chocolate disc, a chocolate button for the nose and piped the mouth onto it.

Panda Sushi

2011-11-17T23:50:00.000+11:00

Hello there! ;)

Can you believe that it's almost christmas?

My uni exams stole a whole chunk of my November, so I was pleasantly surprised to find Christmas decorations everywhere when I came out of my studying shell and entered the real world! Christmas and New Year is by far my favourite time of the year- there is something indescribably joyful about hearing the sounds of Christmas carols and seeing beautiful Christmas trees and other decorations everywhere!

With so much Christmas spirit in the air, I can't quite get it off my mind and have been making plans for a Christmas themed cake....but it's probably a bit early for that!

Meanwhile, I'm here tackling my list (of things to make) which you may remember me talking about. Since I realise that it is unrealistically long, I've brought it down to two main things 'skills' which I hope to ~~master~~ improve on before the end of the year:

1. Cake decorating- not with fondant and everything but just making them look nicer or more presentable.

2. Sushi making- which is of course, the subject of today's post.

I've been terrible at making sushi for as long as I can remember. Whilst I've had practice from helping my mother out since I was young, my rolls have always been much too loose, lop-sided and pretty much terrible no matter how much effort I put into making them. Even my friend's first attempt at sushi was better than mine!!

To be honest, I wasn't too fussed at my lack of sushi making ability until I discovered decorative sushi, where the pattern is found inside the sushi, when you cut it open. The idea itself was very intriguing, but I was even more amazed when i searched online to find beautiful designs, including my personal favourite, the apanman sushi. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a wonderful sushi book when I was in Hong Kong, which introduced me to more beautiful (and mostly simple) designs- and it was quite detailed and easy to follow!

I started off making panda shapes, since it looked simple enough, with only two colours that I had to mix (black from sesame powder and brown from a homemade soy-based sauce). Making decorative sushi is a little different to making normal sushi, in that you sort of pile everything up into its shape before rolling together and the roll is much larger than normal. It's also important that the sushi is packed nice and tight, or else the picture will not show properly- which was difficult for me since my rolls have always been too loose.

The rolls are larger than normal sushi rolls, and my first ones accidentally turned out massive- so big that I needed an extra half a sheet of seaweed to cover the outside of the roll! My second ones were a lot better and manageable- even if the shape didn't turn out as defined as those in the book :)

To be honest, these were much nicer to look at than to eat- after all, it's just a roll of rice! I thought the sesame and rice combination was rather weird- both in taste and texture. It's less noticeable when you're not eating the sushi by itself (I ate it with my leftover tuna), so I guess I'll just have to think of more things to accompany the rolls! I'll definitely be making my way through this book in the next couple of weeks, and should hopefully see an improvement in my sushi making skills ;) Maybe I'll even get the photograph the making of the sushi rolls for you to see!

So unfortunately, there's no recipes or instructions today, but I will leave any of you experienced sushi makers with a question:

How do you get a clean cut on your sushi rolls? I already used my sharpest knife (and I'm pretty sure it is very sharp) and wiped away all the sticky stuff on it before making another cut! I'm thinking it might have something to do with the fact that the rice is loose?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions :)

Let's Meat BBQ

2011-11-15T20:25:00.000+11:00

Uni exams have finally finished for me, meaning that my first year of uni is officially over! It feels so good!! (although my leg, which I hurt whilst running to uni for my psychology exam because my train was half an hour late does feel so good......) I haven't been baking much lately so I haven't got much to blog about now, but I'll be making my way through my enormous list of things to make soon so that should be fun :) I have been eating out a lot though and in particular I've been itching to blog about this dining experience.

That's because this was our second experience with group buy vouchers- and yet again, we chose a restaurant that was long drive from home (1.5 hours this time!). We couldn't resist though, because the deal was for a Korean BBQ buffet at Let's Meat for $39- and we love our buffets.

The reviews online are mostly quite negative, and to be honest, I wasn't too sure what to expect when I called up Let's Meat to make a booking for our family of four. The voucher was valid for any day of the week, so naturally we wanted to make a booking for the weekend, when they had their 'Ultimate Buffet' (normally $41) instead of their weekday option of 'Smart Choice Buffet' (normally $32). The person on the phone sounded a little annoyed when I kept asking if there were any vacancies for any weekend (turns out that they're booked out until after December....) but was a little nicer when I finally decided to visit there on a Tuesday night instead.

Pickled Radishes, onion and mashed potato

We arrived to find the restaurant quite empty (though the surrounding restaurants were also very quiet) but service was great, and we were quickly taken to a table- though it was a designated 'voucher holders' table. We were given an A4 sheet, stating all the terms and conditions of the voucher including that they charge a service charge for changing the BBQ plate and that there is a limit of 10 dishes per voucher (i.e. 2 people) which I thought were a little unnecessary and off-putting.

Before you all think that this place is terrible, I'll point out that the service throughout the night was excellent. Though there were only two people serving the diners (one of which I'm pretty sure was the owner), they were very friendly and attentive. The owner spent the night walking around from table to table, making sure that everyone was enjoying their meal and chatting about just about anything!

This is what happens when you have a dish limit and have to keep reusing the same dish

The selection of hot foods was quite limited, and it didn't help that the food did not get refilled much during the night. This might have been because we did come a little late, since voucher holders could only come at two specific times (6 and 7:30pm). The foods they had available weren't amazing, but good enough to satisfy our hungry stomachs whilst the meats were cooking.

The stir fried noodles were quite tasty but unfortunately a little dry. The fried rice was a little less exciting but probably the better option- the rice was nicely fluffy and delicious. They also a couple other hot dishes like fried chicken, but by the time we arrived there were only one or two left.

Spring Rolls

The spring rolls were probably the only thing which came out of the kitchen in the time that we dined there, so we quickly grabbed almost all of it (there wasn't much to begin with!). They were delicious though- a nice crispy skin with a soft slightly sweet interior of veggies. Shame they didn't have more!

Kimchi

They had a good selection of cold dishes, including the usual kimchi and pickles (onions and radish). I don't really eat much kimchi, so I have no comments on that, but I liked their potato dish which was marinated in a similar spicy sauce- it was quite a surprise because we didn't realise that it was potato at first! My favourite of all the cold dishes was probably their korean/japanese mashed potato which was incredibly soft and smooth- almost like whipped cream!

The highlight of Let's Meat is definitely much more on the meat (hence the name? lol) than the already cooked foods- and thankfully, the meats did not disappoint! The selection of meats was again, quite limited, but we found that all the choices of meat were ones which we enjoy so it doesn't bother us. Most notable amongst their meats would be their cubes of wagyu (which we only noticed existed after we had finished eating!) and their marinated pork, with a delicious marinade which brought about a slight hint of sweetness- making it taste a little like char sui but without the stickiness, and less sweet. I also loved the ox-tongue slices, which were a little thin for my liking but I think that's how ox tongue is usually served for Korean bbq's.

We were pretty pleased with the meats on offer here, and I'll go so far as saying that of all the Korean BBQ buffets we've had in Sydney (we haven't really been to that many) if meat was the only criteria, this would definitely rank as one of our favourites.

One thing that we found quite annoying was that the BBQ grill had pretty much only 2 settings- so hot that all the food burnt before being cooked or too cold that the meats took forever to cook, which wouldn't have bothered us, except that there was a 1.5 hour time limit! They also stated that if we wanted to change the temperature of the grill, we should ask the staff, so we spent the night asking the waiter to switch between the hot and cold setting.....luckily he was extremely nice and didn't mind helping us every time!

Jelly

They didn't have much of a 'desserts' selection, but their website doesn't mention any desserts in their Smart Choice buffet anyway so we weren't too dissappointed. Other than some fruits, there were some cute jellies on offer- I don't usually like jelly anyway but I thought it'd be nice to finish with something sweet.

Ice Cream

They also had ice cream in their freezer, and I loved that they froze the ice cream cups as well as the ice cream :) They only had vanilla flavoured ice-cream with a couple of toppings, but it was a nice way to end the night.

Overall, I thought the experience was pretty good, though I think one of the reasons why it wasn't as bad as most other reviews was that I was expecting worse. I might not be back again, but that's more because the food and the price together aren't quite enough for the 1.5 hour trip, but if they had the deal again, I'd definitely buy it!

Coconut Rolls

2011-11-01T16:20:00.000+11:00

Boo!

Hope you all had (or are having..) a great Halloween and did not spend the day like me, at home supposedly 'studying' but of course, not getting much work done ;) It's at these times of the years (right before exams) that my list of things to bake suddenly grows exponentially- and I'm not even kidding, I'm filling out pages of my notebook with 'things to bake after exams'. And I'm not even including the things that I might like to bake!

The list itself doesn't consist of much bread this time around. This is probably because I haven't been to an Asian bakery for a while now and lack a bit of inspiration- I love walking into Breadtop, looking at their overpriced buns and just imagining how easy it would be for me to make the same thing at home!!

I've said that I'm getting back into bread baking, but since I haven't been to an Asian bakery for a while now, these buns are taken from my second source of bread inspiration, cookbooks. I was surprised to find a recipe for baked coconut rolls in my mum's Chinese yum-cha recipe book, though a lot of the recipes in the book were for things you don't normally find at yum cha

I was pretty happy with the bun dough I used last time, especially since the dough was quick and easy to make so I stuck with that recipe and used the book for the shaping method. The cutting and twisting creates thin layers of bread, coated with a sweet coconut mixture which are similar to that of the coconut buns I normally make. These layers are thinner though, and so the texture of the bread doesn't really shine though as much which means you don't really need to go to all the effort of making very smooth bread, but may not be the perfect recipe for people who like the balance between the soft texture of bread and the sweet coconut filling (like my parents). I personally prefer this version, as I love the crispiness and stronger taste of the baked coconut- and I think it looks prettier too! ;)

Coconut Twist Rolls
Recipe for bread dough from Køkken69

6gm Active Dry East
160gm Bread Flour
40gm Plain Flour
50gm Sugar
2gm Salt
50gm Water
1 Egg
40gm Butter

3 eggs, beaten
1 cup dessicated coconut
1/2 cup sugar

1. Mix water roux ingredients together in a bowl. Cover bowl with cling wrap and store in fridge for 12 hours.
2. In a mixer fitted with a bread hook, add flour, yeast, sugar, egg and water. Start mixing at slow speed for 2 mins. Add salt and continue to knead until dough lifts from the wall of the mixing bowl.
3. Add (1) and continue to knead for 3 mins.
4. Add butter and increasing kneading speed to speed 4.
5. Continue kneading for 15 mins on speed 4 until dough is no longer sticky and does not break when pulled to perform window test.
6. Place dough in a slightly oiled bowl. Cover with cling wrap and leave to proof in a warm area for 45mins.
7. Divide the dough into 10 portions and then roll them into small balls. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes, then roll them into a long oval shape and let rest for another 3 minutes.
8. Fold the relaxed dough pieces in half and cut 4-5 slashes with a bread knife into strips (I didn't bother with the folding in half, I just cut 4-5 lines on the dough).
9. Lightly whisk together the 3 eggs into a bowl. Stretch the dough and dip the dough in the egg until fully covered.
10. Sprinkle the coconut and sugar onto a dish and place the egg coated strips into sugar and coconut mixture. Cover both sides of the dough with the mixture.
11. Stretch the strips gently and roll in an anticlockwise direction. Do not roll too tightly.
12. Tie the rolled strips into knots. The knots should be loose rather than tight.
13. Place the rolls one a tray and let rise for ~1 hour
14. Bake at 230C for ~8 minutes or until golden in colour

Notes
* The dough stretches itself very easily, so you don't really need to put much effort into pulling the dough
* The original recipe was for much smaller rolls (for a total of 20 rolls) so the amount of coconut/sugar/eggs is a bit too much for the amount I made- you probably want to use a bit less.
* I realise the instructions aren't all that great, so I tried doing an illustration on paint here. I have not touched paint since primary school...don't laugh!

In other news, Vondelicious! now has a facebook page!
So if you like my blog, feel free to hop over there and give me a facebook like! Thanks for your support! :)

To be honest, I'm not quite sure what it's for, or what I can do with it, but I figured it might be useful someday since everyone else has one ;)

Alimento Cafe, Parramatta

2011-10-27T23:42:00.001+11:00

There's always that strange feeling when I walk into an unfamiliar restaurant for the first time, and don't know exactly what to do. I've experienced it in bistros, when there's a sign which tells you to wait there, but not a waiter in sight. Or in cafes, when you're not sure whether you're supposed to order at the table or at the counter.

We're at Alimento Cafe (after much indecision as to where to eat), and although there are plenty of nice empty tables outside, we're standing awkwardly at the entrance. Do we just sit down and hope that someone notices us? Do we go up to the staff at the counter? Or do we wait until a waitress notices us and takes us to a seat?

We finally capture the attention of the girl at the counter, who (after establishing that we are not voucher holders) tells us to just sit down anywhere and she'll get someone to bring us the menus.

I don't often eat at cafes, and would probably never have noticed this one, but I'd read about Alimento online after searching for Italian food in Parramatta for a dinner with friends.....which never ended up happening. The prices on the menu are quite reasonable, especially at lunch, with their $10 specials- which we're here for. The lunch specials come with the condition that you order a drink from their extensive list of drinks (which took me forever to choose from). I ordered a mocha, which was nice, though I would have liked it to be a little more chocolatey- but I'm not a coffee drinker (this would probably be about my 5th mocha I've ever had) so don't take my word for it ;)

Lemon Pepper Perch Fillet $10

I order the lemon pepper perch fillet, a delicious piece of fish, grilled until tender and crisp at the edges and covered with a layer of lemon sauce. The sauce is surprisingly pleasant and tasty, with the light taste of lemon not being too overpowering and also serves as a nice dressing for the salad. The chips are definitely the highlight of the dish for me, with their shattering crunch and ability to stay crunchy even when soaked in the lemon sauce. My only complaint is that there isn't enough of them!!

Chicken and Prawn Risotto $10

My friend's order of chicken and prawn risotto, was quite popular amongst their lunch customers- and hard to miss with the strange lettuce leave on the side. The tomato based risotto is delicious and creamy- I certainly wouldn't mind ordering it next time! :)

Strawberry Ice Cream

2011-10-21T22:10:00.001+11:00

The first time I made ice cream was about 5 years ago, when I browsed upon the "shakey shakey ice cream' recipe on the abckids website which looked really fun to make. The idea was basically this- mix a couple of ingredients (basically just milk and sugar), put them into a ziplock bag, and then put that bag into a bigger ziplock bag filled with ice and shake until it becomes ice cream. Fun right?

Unfortunately, the 'ice cream' tasted like sweetened frozen milk more than ice cream and did not freeze completely, so it ended up in the bin and that was the last time I attempted to make my own ice cream again! We actually have an ice cream maker at home (and we've had it for quite a long time!) but my dad is usually the one who makes ice cream. Not that we have homemade ice cream often- the last time he ever made any ice cream was at least 5 years ago!!

With the warmer weather approaching, and the many tempting ice cream recipes I've seen on blogs, I thought it was about time I got the ice cream machine back out for a churn. I used a simple custard based recipe from a cookbook I've had on my shelf for a while, added some strawberries to the mixture (it's our favourite homemade ice cream flavour so far!). It was actually surprisingly fun to watch the mixture slowly solidifying as it touched the edges of the freezer bowl and turning into ice cream. And almost impossible to resist sticking my finger in!!

Before long, I had a tub of delicious and creamy ice cream! The texture was softer and creamier than what I remember of my dad's non-custard based ice cream. I especially loved the fresh strawberry taste which was nothing like the fake strawberry flavoured ice creams you get at the supermarket (I don't like strawberry 'flavoured' things). And needless to say, it was quite addictive- just ask my sister, she couldn't get enough of it! Now I know what I'll be up to this summer ;)

Strawberry Ice Cream Recipe
Recipe adapted from Delicious Ice Cream

300ml milk
1 vanilla pod
4 large egg yolks
115g caster sugar
250g fresh strawberries
2 tablespoons lemon juice
300ml double cream

1. Pour the milk into a large heavy-based saucepan. Split open the vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds into the milk, then add the whole vanilla pod too. bring almost to boil, then remove from heat and leave to infuse for 30 minutes.
2. Put the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and whisk together until pale and mixture leaves a trail when the whisk is lifted. Remove the vanilla pod from the milk, then slowly add the milk into the egg mixture, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon. Strain the mixture into the rinsed-out saucepan or a double boiler and cook over a low heat for 10-15 minutes, stirring all the time, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Do not allow the mixture to boil or it will curdle. Remove the custard from the heat and leave to cool for at least 1 hour, stirring from time to time to prevent a skin from forming.
3. Meanwhile, puree the strawberries with a blender or by pushing them through a sieve. Stir into the custard mixture with the lemon juice.
4. Whip the cream until it holds its shape.
5. If using an ice cream machine, fold the whipped cream into the cold custard, then churn the mixture in the machine following the manufacturers instructions. Alternatively, freeze the custard in a freezer container, uncovered, for 1-2 hours, or until it begins to set around the edges. Turn the custard into a bowl and stir with a fork or beat in a food processor until smooth. Fold in the whipped cream. Return to the freezer and freeze for a further 2-3 hours, or until firm or required. Cover the container with a lid for storing.

* I also added a little bit of alcohol (rum) into the mixture with the strawberries because I read somewhere that alcohol makes ice cream smoother.

This post is linked to Foodie Friday

I've submitted this recipe to the Power of pink challenge :)

Red Spoon Thai, Castle Hill

2011-10-17T16:35:00.002+11:00

The end of the uni semester is approaching (much to my delight!), but I find it hard to believe that it's already almost been a year of uni! It was only this time last year that I was studying madly for the final exams! (maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration....)

I'm quite glad that I don't ever have to go through the pressure of those exams again (although uni exams can be just as stressful!), especially in the lovely weather that comes during these months. But I guess my experience doesn't quite compare to that of my friend, who was unfortunate enough to have the exams start on the day after her birthday!! We did celebrate it after the exams, though by the time we got around to that I was ....overseas *ahem*

To celebrate her birthday this year, she took us to Red Spoon Thai in Castle Hill, which I was quite excited about, not only because I like thai food but because it's been quite a while since I last met up with my group of high school friends!

Thai Fishcakes

We start off with a couple of entrees, and I excitedly whip my camera out as the food comes. I rarely take my (big) camera out to restaurants with me, so I'm quite inexperienced when it comes to restaurants with low lighting and when plates of food just come raining down onto your table....so excuse the blurry photos! :)

Petite Chicken Satay

The chicken satay is a cute, bite-sized portion of 8 skewers, perfect for sharing. The chicken is grilled nicely, and the chicken pieces are tender and tasty, especially when dipped with the sweet, nutty peanut sauce or cucumber relish it is accompanied by.

Curry Puffs

Interestingly enough, the curry puffs don't have much of a curry flavour, but are still quite tasty, especially with the sweet chilli sauce. The vegetable filling, consisting of mainly carrots (no doubt the frozen ones of course!), are a little too soft and overcooked for my liking but the beautifully pleated wrapping of pastry is deep fried until perfectly light and makes the puffs very enjoyable.

Barbecued Chicken

I would have left this picture out of the post (because it's so blurry!), but the barbecued chicken was very tasty, and definitely one of the highlights of the dinner. Like the entree of satay skewers, this grilled chicken thigh was very tender but was even more tasty, with its slightly sweet and flavoursome marinade/sauce.

Green Curry with Chicken

My first observation of the green chicken curry is that it is quite green, with all the peas and beans, but interestingly, lacking in the vegetables I usually like with my green curries, like corn and eggplant.Whilst the curry is pleasantly creamy and fragrant from the coconut milk, I find that it lacks a little in spices (it isn't even hot!) and doesn't really make me want to go back for more.

Red Curry with Chicken

The Red Curry was a more popular on our table, with its heavier use of spices, bringing out a more interesting depth of flavour.

Pad Thai

The Pad Thai is a generous serving of stir fried thin rice noodles which aren't too sticky or overly sweet. We ordered both chicken and prawn pad thai's, both of which were enjoyable, but pretty average.

Thai Fried Rice

The menu promises that the fried rice is not boring- and I think they kept their promise pretty well! Whilst the rice is a little too oily for my liking, the fried rice carries strong Thai flavours (especially basil) and was very tasty.

When we finished eating, the table was quickly cleared (which wasn't actually an easy job, as the table was quite packed and there were a lot of dishes on the table). The birthday girl brought her own cake, so we were sort of expecting it to be brought out afterwards. What we weren't expecting was for the lights to be turned off and birthday music to start playing- a lovely surprise! :)

Fruit tarts

2011-10-09T23:18:00.002+11:00

I love reminiscing over childhood television shows. Magic Mountain, Johnson and Friends, William's Wish Wellingtons are some of my favourites- anyone know any of these? I love the cartoons and children's shows of the late 90's, back when they were simple and there was none of this digital animation stuff which dominates children's TV nowadays- has anyone seen the new Thomas the Tank Engine?!?!

I spent a considerable amount of time in front of the television screen as a child and loved watching the various cartoons they played in the morning and afternoons. I would drag out my bright, plastic yellow chair to watch Playschool and when it came to story time, I would grab any book off my bookshelf and pretend to read along with them, pretending that I could speak English fluently, and knew perfectly well what was going on.

In my later (early primary school) years, most of my television watching time was during the afternoons after school, as my parents did not let us watch TV in the morning (not that we would have woken up early enough to get ready for school and have time to watch tv!). Of the many shows I watched in that time period, one which I personally find quite memorable is Soupe Opera (though I don't think it's very popular!) because of its interesting theme of fruit arrangement and its strange opera music! If you're curious, have a look at the video below- I still find it very creative and entertaining!

I've always thought it'd be fun to cut up pieces of fruit and arrange them into cute animals like they do this on show. Not that I've actually ever done it- their designs are very intricate and require a considerable amount of effort! But if my fruit arrangement 'skills' were as creative as this, it would be pretty awesome, because then I could make really pretty cakes and pastries!!

I guess I'll just have to stick with copying other people's designs or making simple patterns like I did with these fruit tarts ;)

I had intended on making a more complex fruit tart, like my favourite ones, or pretty much the only ones I've had, at Maxim's Bakery (in Hong Kong) which, from memory, consists of a delicious chocolate coated tart shell, filled with a layer of light pastry cream (almost like whipped cream!), a thin layer of sponge cake (if my memory serves me right) and topped with a beautiful arrangement of fruits, brushed with a thin jelly glaze.

That didn't end up happening.

This version is a lot simpler, with a simple shortcrust pastry tart shell and a rich pastry cream, topped with the fruits I had in my fridge and a quick glaze. And it tasted pretty amazing!!

I think fruit tarts fall into the category of tasting great no matter how bad you stuff it up- just like chocolate cakes! The combination of fresh fruits, sweet pastry cream and crispy pastry can't go wrong, even if your pastry or pastry cream isn't that great. This is actually my second time making fruit tart- the first being a couple years ago, when I first got into baking but was too scared of making my own pastry. I resorted to store bought shortcrust pastry, which I only found out after making them, was actually salty and not sweet at all! Nevertheless, the were all eaten up (with the help of some friends!).

This batch of fruit tarts are a lot more successful, and I'll definitely be making these more often in the future! (hopefully, I'll get time to make them as intended next time!)

This one design was my sister's creation ;) (She wanted me to share it with you...)

Fruit Tarts

Sweet shortcrust Pastry (Pate Brisee)
Recipe from Bourke Street Bakery (I summarised it because the recipe was way too long to type out!!)
Makes 20 (8cm) tart shells

400 g (14 oz) unsalted butter, chilled, cut into 1.5 cm (5/8 inch) cubes
20 ml (1/2 fl oz / 1 tbsp) vinegar, chilled
100 g (3 1/2 oz) caster (superfine) sugar, chilled
170 ml (5 1/2 fl oz / 2/3 cup) water, chilled
665 g (1 lb 7 1/2 oz) plain (all-purpose) flour, chilled
5 g (1/8 oz / 1 tsp) salt

1.Remove the butter from the refrigerator 20 minutes before you start mixing
2.Put the vinegar and sugar in a bowl and add the water, stirring well. Set aside for 10 minutes, then stir again to completely dissolve the sugar
3.Mixing the dough by hand: mix together the flour and salt in a large bowl and toss through the butter. Using your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour to partly combine.
Using a food processor: put the flour and salt in the bowl of the food processor and add the butter, pulsing in 1-second bursts about three or four times to partly combine.
4.You should now have a floury mix through which you can see squashed pieces of butter. Turn out onto a clean work surface and gather together. Sprinkle over the sugar mixture and use the palm of your hand to smear the mixture away from you across the work surface (a pastry scraper is a useful tool to use for this step). Gather together again and repeat this smearing process twice more before gathering the dough again. You may need to smear once or twice more to bring it together - you should still be able to see streaks of butter marbled through the pastry; this gives it a slightly flaky texture to the final product. Divide the dough into two even-sized portions and shape into two round, flat discs about 2 cm (3/4 inch) thick. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight.
5.Remove the pastry dough from the refrigerator 20 minutes before you wish to roll it. Sprinkle a little flour on the bench and rub a little flour over a rolling pin. Working form the centre of the pastry, gently roll the dough away from you, then turn the dough about 30 degrees and roll out again. Repeat this process until you have a flat round disc, about 3 mm (1/8 inch) thick. Sprinkle extra flour over the bench and rolling pin as needed, but try to use it as sparingly as possible - if too much is absorbed into the pastry it will result in a dough with poor flavour and texture. Bear in mind that you are trying to flatten the pastry into a disc, not ferociously stretch it out in all directions. Stretching will only cause the pastry to shrink excessively when baking. transfer the pastry to a tray and place in the refrigerator, covered in plastic wrap, for at least 2 hours to allow the gluten to relax.
6.Brush twenty 8cm (3 1/4 inch) individual tart tins with a little butter. Cut the pastry using a round pastry cutter with an 11 cm (4 1/4 inch) diameter. Place the pastry on top of the mould ensuring it is in the centre and use use your fingers to gently push the pastry into the mould, moving around the rim until all of the pastry has been inserted - you should now have about 1 cm (1/2 inch) of dough hanging over the sides. Use your index finger and thumb to work your way around the edge, forcing the pastry into the mould so that little or no pastry is left protruding. Where the upright edge of the pastry meets the base there should be a sharp angle where is has been firmly forced into the corner - this method of lining the tin is to counteract the pastry shrinking once baked.
7. Set the pastry cases aside to rest for at least 2o minutes in the freezer so that the gluten relaxes and holds its shape when you line it with foil.
8.Preheat the oven to 200C (400F). Line the pastry with a double layer of aluminium foil, making sure the foil is pushed well into the corners. Pour in some baking beads or uncooked rice to fill the case and bake for 20-25 minutes - the baking time will vary considerably from oven to oven. When cooked properly, the pastry should have a golden colour all over, particularly in the centre, which tends to be the last part to colour and become crisp.The tart shells are now ready to be filled.

Pastry Cream
Recipe from Five Star Pastry, by Tony Wong
It didn't make enough for me to fill all the tart shells (I doubled the recipe but that was too much custard) but that may have something to do with the fact that I made shells of many different shapes and sizes!

1/2 vanilla pod
500g milk
125g sugar (I used white)
120g egg yolk
50g corn starch
25g unsalted butter

1. Split the vanilla pod. Scrape the seeds with the back of a knife
2. Bring vanilla pod (and seeds) and milk to boil. Turn off heat. Cover and infuse for 1 hour
3. Mix corn starch with half the portion of sugar. Pour in 1/5 of the milk and stir until smooth. There is no need to sift the corn starch in advance as the sugar will break up the corn starch upon stirring.
4. Add egg yolk and stir well
5. Bring the remaining milk and half portion of sugar to boil
6. Pour the boiling milk mixture into the egg yolk mixture. Stir well and pour mixture back into the saucepan. Bring to boil. Stir well and cook for 2 minutes, whisking continually.
7. Keep stirring until a light, yellow, thick paste forms.
8. Strain the mixture and discard the vanilla pod (I found it quite difficult to strain, so I'd probably discard the vanilla pod before after infusing it in the milk and skip this step instead). Stir over ice water and let it cool to 60degreesC.
9. Add the unsalted butter. Sir until butter fully combines with pastry cream. Refrigerate for 3 hours.

Glaze
10g gelatine powder
8g caster sugar
150ml water

Combine all the above ingredients and heat in a saucepan until the gelatine and sugar has melted. Let it cool until it reaches 70degreesC (I just let it cool until it is a slightly thick liquid) before using it to brush onto fruits.
To assemble:
1. Fill each tart shell with pastry cream and spread it to create a smooth surface
2. Arrange your fruits on top of the custard in a pretty pattern :)
3. Brush a thin layer of glaze over the fruits and refrigerate the tarts until chilled and glaze is set.

Macaroni Cheese

2011-09-23T23:45:00.006+10:00

I was looking at the calendar on Monday, and couldn't quite figure out whether it was the 12th or if it was the 19th. This month has really flown by much too fast.

Actually, the whole year has flown by incredibly quickly- I find it hard to believe that it was only a year ago that I was graduating from high school! But the past week has been extremely hectic for me, with a couple of quizzes, essays due for uni, a dance exam and to top it all off, I volunteered for the Australian Dance Festival last weekend! Now, I don't usually talk much about what I do during the week, especially when its unrelated to food, but I want to write about it somewhere incase I ever forget about it- because the festival was simply amazing!! I met many lovely people, even participated in a world record attempt (and managed to hit a little girl in the eye while I was at it....sorry!) and watched many amazing and inspirational performances.

I also managed to dislocate my knee on the weekend (only the day before my dance exam!) so now my knee cap feels like its not attached to my leg and is about to fall off......literally. But I won't scare you with all the gory details! ;)

Of course, the period following such excitement is often filled with feelings of extreme fatigue so it wasn't surprising when I found myself very tired and sleepy at uni for the past two days (though staying up until 2:30 in the morning writing up my psychology report may have something to do with that!). And I mean the extreme type of tired, you know, where you'd rather pretend not to see someone than actually go up to them and start a conversation? (hopefully this isn't only me...)

Luckily, my mid-semester break has just begun and so I've had plenty of rest, but today, I have a super easy recipe- perfect for when you're much too tired to cook anything complex and exciting. I first discovered this recipe when I was in one of my lazy days, but still wanted to make something slightly more interesting than reheated leftovers. I was in a mood for some pasta and I had some yoghurt in the fridge, so this recipe was perfect!

It really can't get much simpler- boil some macaroni and then mix it with salt, yoghurt, cheese and egg yolk! I also cooked some chicken, covered in cubes of bread and extra cheese (because I was too lazy to blend them into crumbs- not exactly the greatest idea!) and baked it for a couple of minutes to make it more exciting.

I couldn't quite imagine what yoghurt and macaroni would taste like, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it worked beautifully! The yoghurt makes for a very creamy sauce, but brings with it a slight salad dresing-like tang which I quite liked. I'll definitely be making this more often in the future when I'm feeling lazy! (perhaps without the baking....)

Macaroni and Cheese
Recipe from Jose Andre
Serves 4

Ingredients
* 1/2 pound (150g) of uncooked elbow macaroni or your favorite pasta- I used about half that amount but kept everything to same to make one large serving for myself)
* 2 cups of Parmesan (or Manchego or whatever you like) cheese grated using a microplane
* 1/4 cup Greek yogurt
* 1 egg yolk
* Extra virgin olive oil as needed
* Salt to taste
* White pepper to taste

1. Boil the pasta according to package directions. Drain.
2. While still hot, toss the pasta with cheese, olive oil, Greek yogurt and the egg yolk.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Takeru- CBD

2011-09-21T23:49:00.001+10:00

A ~~little while~~ long time ago, my friend took me to try Takeru- a Japanese restaurant most known for its 'half portion' items. I love the idea of half portions, as it means you can order double the normal number of dishes you'd normally order! Unfortunately, this still didn't help with picking items from the menu because there was too much that I wanted to try!

Tuna Sashimi Rice (half portion)

We decide to order two things to share and two to eat by ourselves. My friend picks the Tuna Sashimi rice which is a beautiful dish of warm rice below generous mound of tuna cubes, topped off with a drizzle of mayonnaise and tobiko. The tuna is quite fresh and beautifully coloured. My previous experiences with sashimi rice dishes have often involved some interesting sauces, so I was surprised at the simpleness of this one. Nevertheless, it is quite a tasty and satisfying dish, if a little less exciting than anticipated.

Tonkotsu Ramen

We order the ramen to share, and I'll admit that I'm not much of a ramen critic but I found this ramen to be quite enjoyable. The broth is extremely rich and tasty, and I found myself drinking plenty of it (I don't usually drink ramen broths!).

Baked eel with rice (half portion)

Being a sucker for grilled eel, I order the baked eel with rice, which is consists of pieces of grilled eel and cheese sauce with a layer of melted cheese on top, presented nicely on a hot plate. Whilst I find the flavour combination interesting, the saltiness cheese sauce overpowers the simpler tastes of the grilled eel. The sauce is deliciously tasty though, and I don't mind eating it (especially with the crispy baked cheese) separately to the eel.

Calamari and Squid Ink Pizza

We ordered the squid ink pizza out of interest- I've never had squid ink before, so I was quite excited to taste it for the first time. The squid ink is more liquid-y than the usual pizza sauces, and along with the fact that the pizza is cut into large quarters, makes this pizza pretty messy to eat. I was disappointed to find that the squid ink had very little taste and that the base was not quite as crispy as I would have liked. Nevertheless, it was a fun and exciting dish I enjoyed eating and would not hesitate to order it again!

Soft Buns

2011-09-12T00:15:00.001+10:00

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!!
Hope you all had plenty of fun lighting lanterns and eating mooncakes :D

I was originally going to write about some snowskin mooncakes I made a two days ago........

Unfortunately, they all got gobbled up before I had the chance to take photos. (they were that good) Don't worry- I'll be making them again very soon!!

Instead, I'll tell you about something not as sweet, but equally as good!

It's been a while since I've baked bread, so when I saw these extremely soft buns on Shirley's blog, I couldn't wait to make them. I'd been wondering why the buns I bought from Asian bakeries were always soft wrinkly whilst the ones which came out of my oven, though soft, always remained unwrinkly- call me strange, but I think wrinkly buns are beautiful! Better still, the recipe was was simple, consisting only of a quick roux to be made the night before- perfect for someone in a lazy mood :)

I wanted to keep my buns simple, so I just twisted them into a knot, as I'd seen in one of my cookbooks (though mine didn't turn out quite as pretty). The buns turned out very soft, as I'd expected and were especially good straight out of the oven.

I think I'm starting to get hooked on bread baking again!!

Soft Buns
Recipe from Køkken69

Water Roux
50g Bread Flour
75g Boiling water

Bread Dough
6gm Active Dry East
160gm Bread Flour
40gm Plain Flour
50gm Sugar
2gm Salt
50gm Water
1 Egg
40gm Butter

Method
1. Mix water roux ingredients together in a bowl. Cover bowl with cling wrap and store in fridge for 12 hours.
2. In a mixer fitted with a bread hook, add flour, yeast, sugar, egg and water. Start mixing at slow speed for 2 mins. Add salt and continue to knead until dough lifts from the wall of the mixing bowl.
3. Add (1) and continue to knead for 3 mins.
4. Add butter and increasing kneading speed to speed 4.
5. Continue kneading for 15 mins on speed 4 until dough is no longer sticky and does not break when pulled to perform window test.
6. Place dough in a slightly oiled bowl. Cover with cling wrap and leave to proof in a warm area for 45mins.
7. With lightly floured hands and table top, knead (6) to form a smooth round ball. Divide dough into 12 balls - about 40g each.
8. Roll each small ball into a round ball and leave to proof for 10mins. Shape into a knot (or whatever you want to shape it into!) then leave to proof for 1 hour.
9. Brush with egg white and decorate.
10. Bake at 185C for 8-10mins until brown. Leave to cool.

* I made mine in my bread machine, but I'll point out that if you do, you should put the roux before the dough forms- bread machines do a terrible job of incorporating wet things into dry doughs. It took mine almost the whole of the kneading cycle to knead the roux in!

Lebkuchen- German Spiced Cookies

2011-09-08T17:48:00.002+10:00

Don't you just hate it when you find a recipe that you're excited to try out, so you take all the effort to make it, and it turns out great.....

..... only to realise that you never really liked that particular type of food in the first place?

Or I could be the only strange one who does that.

But it's happened to me a couple of times!

I was recently sent a copy of Baked and Delicious in the mail, much to my excitement, which came with a set of beautiful brightly coloured silicon muffin cups! I don't own much silicon bakeware (infact, I'm pretty sure the only bit of silicon in my kitchen is my silicon spatula!) but I love the colours! The magazine itself is formatted like a thin cookbook, with bright pages of delicious baked goods and detailed step by step instructions for some recipes.

There were quite a lot of recipes I wanted to try, but I was most intrigued by the Lebkuchen (German spiced cookies). The cookies contained an acceptable butter content (by my standards), and I thought the large amount of honey would make for a great tasting cookie.

It was only when I was halfway through making the batter, that I realised I didn't have enough honey so I did a quick google search of other lebkuchen recipes and ended up making a substitution of some sugar and an egg. The recipe I've included at the end of the post is the original recipe I had intended to make.

I was pleased to find that the cookies still turned out beautifully, if a little different to the pictures in the magazine. I coated them in chocolate because i didn't have any gold leaves, as suggested in the recipe, but I personally think that chocolate looks better than gold leaves ;) On cookies anyway.

What I wasn't so pleased about was that after my first bite, I finally remembered why I've never made spiced cookies before. I don't really like them! I shouldn't have been so surprised though, I'm often lured by the sight of tasty spiced cookies, only to be dissappointed by the taste. Whilst I like spices in cooking, and to some extent, certain cakes and desserts, spiced cookies are definitely not my thing. Which is a shame because I think they would have been really good cookies for someone who likes spiced cookies!

Lebkuchen
Recipe from Baked and Delicious Vol. 1

Ingredients
250g plain flour
75g ground almonds
1tsp baking powder
1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2tsp ground nutmeg
1/2tsp ground cinnamon
1/2tsp ground cloves
zest or an orange and a lemon
200ml clear honey
85g unsalted butter

To decorate
a handful of halved blanched almonds
edible gold leaf (optional)

1. Mix the flour, ground almonds, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, spices and orange and lemon zest in a large bowl. Gently melt the honey and butter together in a saucepan and then tip them onto the dr ingredients and m ix into a fairly stiff dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave the mixture to cool and solidify a bit.
2. Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F. Use your hands to roll the dough into balls about 3cm across and lay them out on the prepared baking sheets with plenty of space between each one. Flatten the balls into circles with your fingers. Put an almond in the centre of each cookie and sprinkle with a few edible gold leaf to decorate. Bake for about 15 minutes until risen and golden, then turn them out to cool on wire racks.

Signature Thai, Balmain

2011-09-03T20:52:00.004+10:00

We don't usually buy coupons off group deal sites- mostly because they are quite a hassle, with all the terms and conditions and because most of them are simply situated in places which are far away from where we live. We decided to try this deal ($19 for $45 worth of food) at Signature Thai restaurant, eventhough it was situated all the way in Balmain, because it seemed like a pretty decent deal for our family of four.

We'd made a booking the day before, and drove for more than an hour to get to Balmain for lunch here on a Sunday. So you can imagine, we were not impressed to turn up and find that the restaurant was not even open. We waited a while, called them numerous times (but no one picked up) and eventually figured that the restaurant wasn't going to open anytime soon and left. Definitely not a good first impression.

After not receiving a call back from them for a week, we called them to make sure they were still in business. The call was answered by an apologetic waitress, who explained that it was a one off because that something had happened. We made a second booking, this time for a Friday night, since it was probably less likely that they wouldn't be open on a Friday night.

Roti

Luckily, the restaurant was open the second time around (though it was much quieter than we'd expected) and the waitresses immediately apologised again once they figured out that we were the ones who turned up when they were closed last time.

We didn't order any rice with our mains so we ordered roti instead, which we thought was interesting in a thai restaurant. The roti was nice and crispy- it tastes like the frozen ones you get from asian supermarkets....but we weren't really expecting freshly made ones anyway.

Thai Beef Salad

We spent a long time pondering over what to order, as the menu was full of interesting choices, but we almost instantly decided to order the thai beef salad, as it is one of our favourite thai dishes. The dressing in this salad was a little disappointing, missing the hit of flavour I've had with beef salads in the past, but beautifully pink beef slices were quite good.

Salt and Pepper Soft Shell Crab

We had a hard time trying to decide between the soft shell crab with curry powder or the salt and pepper soft shell crab , but ended up choosing the latter, since my dad isn't a big fan of curry. The soft shell crab is deliciously crunchy, almost to the point of being too hard and quite tasty with the mix of chilli, spices and shallots. It's served on little bed of lettuce, which serves well to sooth my tongue from the spiciness of the chilli (I'm not too great with spicy food). Whilst it's quite an enjoyable dish, it feels like it's lacking a little something- it wasn't quite as exciting as I'd hoped.

Pad Thai

The menu doesn't offer much variety when it comes to stir fried noodle dishes, so we chose the pad thai (with beef). The stir fry of thin noodles was good though not the most amazing pad thai I've ever had- the sauce isn't too tangy or sweet, but I find the noodles a little on the dry side.

Duck Hoisin

We couldn't really go to a restaurant named Siganture Thai without trying one of their signature dishes, which we are informed by the waitress are Duck Hoisin and Lamb Massaman Curry. The Duck Hoisin sounds a little more interesting than the curry, so we chose that- and were pretty glad we did. It comes as a beautiful dish of roasted duck pieces, accompanied by some plump shitake mushrooms rested on a bed of vegetables and drizzled with a delicious hoisin sauce, which tastes slightly different from the normal, store bought type. The flavours of the dish have a resemblance to Peking Duck, though that may be obvious from the combination of the duck and hoisin sauce, but still unique in its own way. This is definitely the highlight of the meal- the roasted duck has an irresistibly crispy skin and tasty duck meat.

Overall, the food was pretty good, though not spectacular- probably not enough to get us coming back here again (though I may have had a slightly more positive opinion if we had not had been through the first experience of turning up to find it not open).

A journey through Chocolate Cake

2011-08-25T23:53:00.003+10:00

This particular story begins on an ordinary day when a young girl walked into her first Year 8 food technology practical class which, like the rest of the class, she was looking forward to. They were baking chocolate cake today, using a simple melt and mix recipe, and since the lesson was only 50 minutes, the ingredients were already measured and prepared. It couldn’t have been any easier or fool-proof.

By the end of the lesson, the whole room smelt of sugar and chocolate as everyone pulled a beautiful (it a little ordinary) chocolate cake out of their ovens. It was soft, it was chocolatey- it was delicious!

The girl was simply amazed.

What? Wasn’t cake making supposed involve many years of practice and learning? Wasn’t there supposed to be some sort of skill involved? How could she have just made such a delicious cake using such simple ingredients?

So amazed was this little girl that the first thing she did when she went home, was to fumble through her pantry to find the ingredients required for this magical cake and give it a go herself. If she could replicate the recipe at home, it would be perfect as it was her mother’s birthday- it would be the first birthday cake she had ever made for her mother!

After carefully measuring out each ingredient, and following the recipe precisely (and making much of a mess in her kitchen), she eventually managed to prepare the batter and put it in the oven where she waited optimistically for her cake to finish baking. Unfortunately, it did not turn out quite as well as expected.....

(try not to laugh!)

What the girl didn’t realise, was that her (seemingly clever) substitution of Nesquik milk chocolate powder for cocoa powder was not the best idea, contributing to only the slightest chocolate flavour in the cake. That, and perhaps some over mixing of the batter, resulted in a strange looking cake with an even stranger texture and flavour which was barely edible.

Oh well...it’s the thought that counts right? ;)

Not completely disheartened at her unexpected failure, she bought a box of cocoa powder on her next supermarket trip and attempt number 2 and 3 followed a few weeks later. But still no successes. The cake was never sweet, nor chocolaty enough (perhaps the fault of the recipe) and of course, the girl was not quite daring enough to change the amount of sugar or cocoa powder in the recipe.

Taking the easy way out, she decided to start with box mixes instead, and not surprisingly managed to create a few, tasty cake-looking cakes out of them.

Convinced she had gained some experience, knowledge and perhaps skill in the kitchen, she decided to tackle the chocolate cake again- this time with a new recipe, from the back of the cocoa box. The recipe itself was simple- another melt and mix recipe quite similar to the one she had been using from school. Expecting a failure once again, you could imagine her surprise when out of the oven popped a beautiful looking chocolate cake!

one of the later attempts at this recipe (the first one wasn't that pretty...)

It was from that moment that she was hooked onto baking. There was something indescribably satisfying about successfully creating a cake from scratch that lured her back into the kitchen time and time again. She started to find herself flicking through cookbooks, as this interest slowly spread from cakes, to cookies, to desserts, and eventually to food in general.

One day, she started a food blog....and the rest is history ;)

* * * *

It’s my blog’s 2nd birthday (two days ago actually), and I thought it would be a little fitting to look back to where it all started and see how far I’ve come. I started this blog when things were sort of going downhill- I’d been met with countless failures and decided that it would be nice to begin documenting everything, hoping that it would also force me to put more effort into ensuring successes- or at least try to make my bakes look a little better.

Whilst that goal has pretty much been achieved, what I hadn’t quite considered was that this blog would, in turn, motivate me to bake more, try out new recipes/techniques and fuel my interest in food in general. Nor did I think that I would love blogging so much (afterall, I’ve always hated writing!) and spend so much time reading many other inspirational food blogs.

A celebration cannot pass without cake, and whilst this chocolate beetroot cake I present you with today may not be quite as exciting as perhaps some complicated dessert I could have made, it does go to show much I’ve changed since I first set foot in the kitchen, when you compare this cake, with the ones I made when I first started baking.

Oh, and it tastes absolutely amazing.

The recipe comes from Sala at Veggie belly. She says on her blog, that after she tried this recipe, she threw out all her other chocolate cake recipes!! If that’s not enough to get you wanting to try this recipe, I don’t know what is! The combination of chocolate and beetroot is quite interesting- I love that the chocolate flavour in cakes is so strong and tasty that it can cover up almost anything, like mistakes (which is probably why the first thing we baked in food tech class was chocolate cake) or, in this case, most of the beetroot flavour. The beetroot is completely unnoticeable- it sort of melts into the cake, giving the most amazing moist texture, and gives it a slight hint of its own unique sweetness.

Now, I’m not usually a beetroot fan. Infact, I’m usually one of those who scream ‘yuk!’ at the sight of beetroot, perhaps because of the fact that no-one in my family likes it and as such, this was the first time we’ve had beetroot in our kitchen. I would have liked to surprise my family with the fact that there was beetroot in the cake, the way you’re supposed to with these kind of cakes, but that wasn’t the easiest job, considering I had red stained hands after peeling the beetroot and a whole pot of beetroot left over after baking the cake.

Nevertheless, they received their surprise- it was definitely a lot tastier than anyone expected and had me planning on making a second one almost instantly. It’s one of the most exciting recipes I’ve come across for a while!

Beetroot Chocolate Cake Recipe
from Veggie Belly
Original Recipe from Ross Burden

serves about 8

for the cake
85g dark chocolate
3 medium eggs
300g sugar
240ml sunflower or vegetable oil
300g cooked and pureed beets
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
30g cocoa powder
200g flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

for the chocolate ganache
250g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
250ml heavy cream

1. Pre heat oven to 350 f.

2. Melt the chocolate (for the cake) over a double boiler. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar and oil. Slowly add the cooked beet puree , the melted chocolate and vanilla into the egg mixture. Beat just untill combined.

3. Sift the cocoa, flour, baking soda and salt. Add this to the beet batter. Fold just untill everything is combined. Dont over work or over mix the batter.

4. Spread a teaspoon of butter or oil over the surface of a 10 inch cake pan. Sprinkle some flour all over, and tap out the excess. Pour the cake batter into the prepared cake tin. Bake for about 30 minutes, or till a tooth pick or skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Baking time may vary depending on the pan and oven you are using.

5. While the cake is baking, work on the ganache frosting. Place the chocolate in a bowl. Heat the cream in a sauce pan, just till it starts to barely boil. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and whisk till it forms a smooth sauce.

6. When the cake is done, cool it on a wire rack. Then pour the chocolate ganache over while the ganache is still warm. Let the ganache topping cool and set a little before serving.

Ma'leisia Cafe

2011-08-12T22:54:00.001+10:00

Finding somewhere to eat with my family isn’t exactly as easy as it seems- we all have quite different tastes, we have a limited budget and of course the area we live in isn’t exactly as full of exciting choices as perhaps the city. Too often, we run out of ideas of where to eat and end up revisitng the same places over and over again- not that it’s a bad thing, but sometimes, a little something different would be nice!

So when I saw this restaurant on Chocolatesuze’s blog, I was quite excited to try it out. Walking there from the shopping centre, we almost decided to try some of the restaurants on the way there instead, but I persisted and we eventually made our way to this little cafe.

Deep Fried Salt and Pepper Calamari ($7.90)

We start with an entree of deep fried calamari. They look quite like the packaged ones which you fry yourself at home, but are deliciously tender, with a satisfying crunch which leaves us hooked and not at all disappointed.

Nasi Lemak with Bali Chicken ($9.90- lunch special)

The Bali Chicken is a curious looking dish, with chicken covered in a mysterious dark, thick sauce. The chicken is quite tender, but it is really the sauce which is the highlight of this dish- slightly sweet and nutty, and flavoured with various spices, the sauce is incredible tasty. So much so, that I would have happily licked all of the remaining sauce on the plate if it were not for its spiciness! (It probably wasn't that spicy- I just don't take spicy too well!)

Ipoh Chicken Rice ($8.90- lunch special)

The Ipoh Chicken bares a strange resemblence to Hainese chicken- especially with soup and sauces it came with. The generous serving of chicken is served on top of a bed of bean sprouts, with a light drizzle of a tasty soy-based sauce and my favourite component- plenty of deep fried garlic! Served with a mound of tasty chicken flavoured rice, which is delicious enough to be eaten by itself, this dish was another winner which we wouldn't mind ordering again.

Ais Kacang ($3 - with meal)

We finish with a dessert of Ais Kacang, a jumble of sweet delights like grass jelly and red beans beneath a sweet mountain of shaved ice drizzled with rose syrup. It's not quite as good as the version at Mamak (which is where our first encounter with the dessert occured) but still a satisfying end to a delicious meal.

Kingston Biscuits

2011-07-19T16:27:00.001+10:00

There’s something quite amazing about having a cake, biscuit or something else you love eating coming straight out of your own oven, instead of some thin plastic packaging. I love the whole process- starting with very simple ingredients like flour and sugar, slowly mixing them together to create a batter or a dough of some sort and then watching as they transform into something delicious. It’s the reason that I spend so much effort baking things which would be so much more convenient or cheaper (or perhaps, though not likely, taste better) to buy from the shops.

I love pretty much all recipes, and particularly love recipes for things I love to eat (duh!), but whenever I open up a recipe book or am reading food blogs, what draws my attention the most are recipes which attempt to recreate some dish or snack. Even if what they’re trying to recreate is something I’ve never heard of or had before- if it’s good enough that someone can be bothered trying to make it themselves at home, then I’m interested.

So after I saw these Kingston biscuits on Julia’s blog, this recipe remained in the back of my mind until I finally decided making them. You see, when I was reading the post (a year ago) I wasn’t too fond of Arnott’s Kingston biscuits. Actually, I wasn’t too sure I’d had them before, but I don’t have much of a thing for sandwiched cream biscuits (with the exception of oreos!). I guess I have to thank the supermarkets for putting these biscuits on sale- otherwise I would never have thought of buying them to try. Not only did I discover I liked them (a lot!) but so did my sister!

These Kingston biscuits are quite different as the packaged ones, but then again I guess that’s the beauty of homemade recipes- they taste similar enough that you can recognise that it to be a version of the well known biscuit but are in many other ways, so different. For one thing, these don’t look much like Kingston’s- they’re larger (mostly my fault because I didn’t realise they’d expand so much) and I guess chunkier because of the oats. They’re also less crunchy than the packaged ones, though I guess you could bake them for longer if you like your biscuits super crunchy, and they soften over the next few days to create slightly chewy cookies. And of course, they taste different. But in a good way of course.

I sandwiched these biscuits with ganache instead of chocolate because I like the smoothness of ganache but it takes quite a while for it to cool and harden completely so for the first couple of hours after sandwiching them, the biscuits sort of slide over each other and the chocolate filling is very smooth and almost runny- it’s so good! Not that they taste any less delicious when it hardens- infact, my sister likes the biscuit better the next couple of days when the cookie softens slightly. Either way, our general consensus is that these homemade Kingston’s are terribly addictive and even better than the packaged ones- we even have two untouched packaged ones sitting in our pantry to prove it!

Kingston Biscuit Recipe
Adapted from Mélanger- thanks Julia! (sorry that half of the measurements are in grams and the other half is in cups- I sorta fiddled around with the recipe as I went!)

90g butter 45g golden syrup (I used honey)
1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup demerara sugar
1/2 cup plain flour
1 cup dessicated coconut

100g chocolate (I used dark chocolate)
80ml cream (that's all I had in my fridge- and it worked out pretty well!)

1. Preheat oven to 160C. Cream butter, sugar and golden syrup until pale and fluffy.
2. Add flour, bicarb soda, coconut and rolled oats, and beat on slow speed until just combined.
3. Drop teaspoons of mixture onto paper lined trays. Bake in oven for 15 minutes or golden.
4. For the filling, Combine chocolate and cream in a small heatproof bowl; stir with metal spoon over pan of simmering water until melted and smooth. Refrigerate until spreadable then sandwich biscuits together. Can be kept in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Mamak Village

2011-07-13T13:05:00.000+10:00

I’d been meaning to try out Mamak Village for a while (especially after Alison recommended it!), so when my friend revealed that she had never been to a Malaysian restaurant before, I quickly suggested we come here for our next lunch together. A short walk from uni, we find ourselves at the entrance, looking at a closed sign. It’s strange to think that I ate lunch at 11 in the morning when I was at uni- I only wake up at that time now! Just as we begin walking away however, the blinds are opened and the restaurant is opened- yay!

Roti canai ($4)

We couldn't come here without ordering the roti, of course, and we chose the most basic roti canai to share between us. It is crisp and flaky, though not quite as much as Mamak’s (is it even possible not to compare any roti with mamak’s?), but every bit as exciting and satisfying! The curries were also delicious, though we couldn’t quite figure out what the middle sauce was, and we had no problem mopping just about all of it up!

Mee Siam $9.50

The rest of the menu was a little more difficult to choose from, only because of the large variety of dishes on offer. Luckily, they have pictures on the back of the menu, and I automatically go for the Mee siam. The vermicelli stir fry is nice and dry, with big chunks of prawns, crunchy bean sprouts and lettuce to accompany the tasty noodles.

Nasi Lemak $10

We decide to order the Nasi Lemak because we wanted something with rice and this had a thumb next to it on the menu :D We ordered it with chicken curry (instead of beef rendang) which comes as a tasty drumstick which is tender enough to be easily split into two halves by a spoon. As surprising as it may seem, this is my first taste of Nasi Lemak- and I loved it! The coconut rice was delicious enough to enjoy by itself and I loved trying out each of the accompanying components to see which one I liked the best (I think it would have to be the anchovies!)

We leave feeling full and satisfied- and me with intentions of coming back here more often! If you have any suggestions for good restaurants near Sydney uni, leave a comment- I can't wait to try more places when the next semester starts (just about the only thing I'm actually looking forward to about uni....) :)

Watkin's Orchard

2011-07-08T21:57:00.001+10:00

I’ve never been any good at gardening, though I’d have to admit, that may be because I can never maintain interest in caring for a plant long enough that it survives its first couple of weeks. After successfully growing leeks for agriculture in Year 8, I had a short lived interest in growing vegetables, which resulted in me attempting to grow some lettuce in our backyard. Though I carefully planted and watered them for a couple of months, they only managed to grow to about the size of a fist before they decided to stop growing.

An interest in gardening obviously does not run in our family. There was one time when my sister tried planting a couple of mandarin seeds in a pot in hopes of growing a mandarin tree, but the pot was then emptied out by my grandma when she came over the next day, thinking that it was just a pot of soil. We once had some sugar cane, tomatoes, chives and chilies in our backyard but over the years, we’ve gotten rid of them, mostly because their quality was depleting and we simply could not be bothered caring for them anymore.

So it’s not surprising that we don’t have any edible plants in our garden, much less a lemon/mandarin/orange tree, which so many people have. Luckily, there exists lovely orchards around Sydney for us to visit, whenever we feel like picking and eating fresh fruits straight off a tree- even if it means we have to drive a couple of hours to do so!

We visited Watkin’s Orchard a while ago, down at Wiseman’s ferry, a relatively short 1.5 hour drive from home. The first time went (last year), we did so on a weekday and forgot to make a booking- so we arrived to see the gate closed and the orchard, of course, empty. Luckily, the owners noticed us standing there, and opened it for us!

The imperial mandarins are in season right now- small, sweet and juicy mandarins which I think just might be my favourite! They are sold for $10 a big bucket and you're allowed to eat as many mandarins as you can while you're there :) I taste tested just about every tree I picked from (which is actually quite pointless because every mandarin on the one tree tastes different)....which was a lot of mandarins. Definitely the most mandarins I've ever eaten in one go ;)

I’ve created quite a big collection photos from our fruit picking adventures over the years- a lot of which I quite like, not because of my photography skills, but because I find orchards quite nice places in general. I’ve always wanted to blog about them, but I always end up having nothing much to say…..so I think I might just press the ‘publish’ button before I change my mind about this one! ;)

Squid and Seafood dumplings

2011-07-05T18:17:00.001+10:00

One of the first things I did once my exams finished (*ahem* more than two weeks ago) was to bake a batch of crème caramels (which I must blog about some day….once I get it perfect!) as I’d been receiving requests from my family for them since ages ago. It’s been a while since I’ve made a relatively successful dessert and I was quite happy to be in the kitchen again measuring and whisking away. It's been quite a while since I've been in the kitchen making a nice dessert, as you may have noticed from the things I post on this blog. I do however, bake and cook a lot more than I blog- don’t worry, I haven’t completely stopped baking! I’ll admit that I’ve been quite lazy with blogging this year and too often, just can’t be bothered to photograph food nicely or to write something which doesn’t make me sound like an idiot (which, might I add, takes quite a lot of effort!) to publish here.

My second creation of these holidays, which I'm quite proud of, are these squid shaped (yess....they're supposed to look like squid!) shrimp dumplings, which took me and my mum about 1.5 hours to make! The recipe comes from a cookbook I bought at the airport at the beginning of the year, on the way back from Hong Kong, Trendy Dim Sum in Hong Kong . Dim sum is one of my favourite things to make (though probably not as much as desserts and pastries!), despite me not liking yum cha that much, because it's a really category of its own- with its unique techniques and methods, some of which are quite challenging.

I've been itching to try some recipes from this particular book though, because it has got to be the most creative dim sum book I've ever seen. Think pea shaped dumplings, turtle shaped pastries, chrysanthemum pastries just to name a few!

Dumplings before streaming

My mum often makes har gow (steamed prawn dumpling) at home, from a trusty recipe she obtained from a cooking course she attended ages ago (which I might have to share here some day) so making these dumplings wasn't too much of a challenge for us. The dough/wrapper was a little different in this recipe because it's supposed to be a crystal wrapper- that is, it's supposed to be transparent. Which didn't exactly happen to ours, as you can see in the pictures, and the addition of a tapioca starch paste to the dough made it incredibly sticky and difficult to handle. We didn't exactly follow the recipe because we didn't have a whole lot of seafood in our pantry so we basically made the filling with prawns and water chestnuts and minced some squid to stick all the filling ingredients together.

The squid shape was a lot harder to make than it looked and we ended up using so much time to perfect our squid shapes- probably a lot more time than it was worth but it was fun! They didn't end up tasting as good as the har gow we usually make from my mum's recipe but still quite good. And I thought they were pretty cute too!

Squid and Seafood Dumplings
Recipe from Trendy Dim Sum in Hong Kong

Crystal Wrapper
(A)
75g tapioca starch (can substitute with corn flour)
114g water
225g boiling water

(B)
150g wheat flour/starch (tang flour)
225g boiling water

Filling
300g chopped squid
300g cuttlefish
38g cooked shark's fin
38g diced water chestnut
38g soaked white fungus
19g diced spring onion
19g diced bell pepper

Seasoning
4g salt
8g MSG
15g grandulated sugar
19g corn flour
19g oil

Some black sesame seeds for making the eyes

Crystal Wrapper
1. Mix the water and tapioca starch of (A) together. Then add in the boiling water, stir until the starch becomes half done. (I'm not quite sure what it means exactly by half done, but this should be a thick paste)
2. Pour the boiling water of (B) into the wheat flour until totally done (this should become a thick paste)
3. Mix the above mixtures together and knead the mixture into a smooth dough. Then divide to 20 portions, 11g each. Roll them into round, thin slices. We didn't bother weighing the dough out- we divided them into fishball sized portions.

Combining
1. Wash the squid, mince and strir vigorously until sticky, add in the seasoning and then mix with the remaining filling ingredients. Set aside.
2. Wrap about 15g (~ 1 teaspoon) of the filling with a portion of crystal wrapper and knead into a squid shape, and then stick 2 black sesame seeds as eyes.
3. Steam in a steamer on high heat for aout 3 minutes. Serve with broth.

The shaping probably needs a bit of clarifying here. What we did was to roll the dough into a circle about the size of a mug, place the filling within and then fold it in half and pinch together the dough to seal. We then cut horizontally along the top of the semicircle so that the filling remained sealed. One of the ends of dough, we shaped into a ball, flattened slightly and then cut into strips. The other end, we pinched into point. With the extra dough we rolled that into a thin triangle and pinched it back onto the pointy end to make the tail.

P.S: Sorry for disappearing for so long- sleeping in and doing nothing just feels too good ;)

Nasi Goreng

2011-06-05T23:03:00.001+10:00

This past week has been one of bad weather. I don’t usually dislike the rain- infact, I slightly enjoy splashing and I love the sound of rain pitter-pattering on my umbrella, or on the roof of our house as I’m snuggling into my warm, comfy bed.

But let’s just say that dark gloomy skies and sudden bursts of rain just don't go well with a long, boring day at uni. Especially when you’ve stayed up very late studying for a test the next morning and are so tired you could fall asleep straight away. And when you’ve got two very blocked noses which stubbornly refuse to let any air in no matter how much sniffing you do (here’s an interesting fact for you- trying to fall asleep whilst only breathing with your mouth is, well, close to impossible).

To be honest, I'd much rather stay in bed until the sun comes out again.

This is not to say that the past week has been a terribly depressing one for me. Infact, it's been quite a good week, especially after visiting UNSW for the first time to visit my friends, who I haven't seen for ages- and deciding that I like my uni better ;) And I got back two assignments which I was sure I'd failed but didn't end up doing too bad in. It's a shame they didn't count more- it means I still have to study for the end of semester exams :)

So in the spirit of all things bright and happy, here's a nasi goreng (indonesian fried rice) I attempted to make. I love nasi goreng not just because of the deliciously flavoursome fried rice which is so different to the chinese style fried rice, but also because of the bright, sunny-side-up egg on top, which I break into the steaming hot rice to let it cook further. I guess I was feeling a little too ambitious when I was making this and started adding lots of strange ingredients, which I won't tell you about. Otherwise I might sound like a complete idiot.

But hey- it didn't taste too bad!

Below is the original recipe which I had intended to follow.....

Nasi Goreng
Recipe from this cookbook

2 eggs
30ml/2tbsp water
105ml/7tbsp oil
225g pork or beef fillet
114g peeled cooked prawns
175-225g cooked chicken, finely chopped
2 fresh red chillis, halved and seeded
1cm cube shrimp paste
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 onion, roughly chopped
675g/6 cups cold cooked long grain rice
30ml/2 tbsp dark soy sauce

1. Put the eggs in a bowl and beat in the water, with salt and peper to taste. Using a non-stick frying pan, make two or three omlettes, using as little oil as possible for greasing. Roll up each omlette and cut in strips when cold. Set aside. Place the strips of pork or beed in a bowl. Put the prawns and chopped chicken in separate bowls. Shred one of the chillies and reserve it.
2. Put the shrimp paste in a food processor. Add the ramining chilli, the garlic and the onion. Process to a fine paste. Alternatively, pound the mixture in a mortar, using a pestle.
3. Heat the remaining oil in a wok and fry the paste, without browning, until it gives off a rich, spicy aroma. Add the pork or beef and toss over the heat to seal in the juices, then cook for 2 minutes more, stirring constantly.
4. Add the prawns, and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Finally stir in the chicken, cold rice, dark soy sauce or ketchup and seasoning to taste. Reheat the rice fully, stirring all the time to keep the rice light and fluffy and prevent it from sticking to the base of the pan.
5. Spoon into indiviudal dishes and arrange the omlette strips and reserved chilli on top. Garnish with the deep-fried onions and coriander sprigs.

$5 dining

2011-05-31T23:30:00.001+10:00

Ever since I discovered cheap lunches near my uni, I've been eating out relatively often, and I have quite a few restaurant I need to blog about now! A couple of months ago, the Sydney Morning Herald had coupons for $5 dining deals in Sydney, I couldn't resist trying them out! So here I present you with the cheapest of all the lunches I've had so far this year (in Sydney)!

Home

Chicken Pad Thai- $5 (normally $8.90 on the lunch menu)

My first trip was to Home, though I had no idea where it was and ended up taking a lengthy walk down Sussex street. To be honest, I was expecting some cheap food court like place- afterall, the coupon was offering a pad thai for $5! So I was surprised when we arrived to find a really nice restaurant which was already packed but we were lucky enough to get a small table straight away and had our order quickly taken by the waitress....with an ipad!!

The prices on the menu itself were also pretty low, and there were many items on the menu I'd love to come back to try. I salivated over the satay skewers and the beef salad the table next to us had ordered, and wowed at the beautiful dish served in banana blossom that we saw taken from the kitchen.

My Pad Thai was equally as tempting, with its beautiful presentation and its taste did not dissappoint either! I would have liked it a little sweeter, but I do like my pad thai's to be very sweet, but I still loved these noodles!

Malacca Straits

Deep Fried Tofu with Minced Chicken- $5

I've walked past the Malacca Straits sign many times when walking down Broadway and after reading about it on many food blogs, I was looking forward to trying it out. We arrive quite early (as we usually do), to find the restaurant empty, but luckily, open. It could really do with an open/closed sign ;)

The coupon for this restaurant was a for a fried hand-made silken tofu with minced chicken dish. It's something I wouldn't have ordered if I'd seen it on the menu, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The dish arrived so hot and steaming that I couldn't manage to take a picture without the lends fogging up (hence the ugly picture!). The tofu was deliciously unique- it was extremely soft and silky though not to the point that it didn't feel like tofu and had a distinct tofu taste. It tastes a lot better than the packaged tofu we usually buy from Asian supermarkets! The sauce and the vegetables were a great accompaniment, but I didn't notice the chicken mince until we'd almost finished the dish!

Garlic Prawn Stir Fry $11

After deciding we didn't want chicken (since the above tofu dish already featured it), we decided on seafood as the best alternative, since it was nothing like chicken, and settles for the garlic prawns. A generous serving of prawns, accompanied with a selection of vegetables nicely stir fried with plenty of garlic, there was nothing not to like about this. I however, found it a little ordinary- I guess was expecting something a little different, after reading some interesting dishes on food blogs. Oh well- I guess I'll have to try out other dishes another time!

La Casa Pasta

Spaghetti Bolognese- $5

Lured by the promise of a $6 pasta, I decided to take my friends to try out La Casa Pasta. Though the website showed various locations, we arrived at each only to find they were no longer in business, and ended up taking the long walk down Glebe Point road to find this store- which looked more like a take away shop than restaurant, but we'd made it so far, we went in anyway.

The pasta turned out to be $5, which was even better though just judging by the looks of the place, we weren't really expecting that much. We ordered anyway (and paid at the table....which I found quite strange) and waited. And then we saw a cockroach on our table......

My friends ordered a spaghetti bolognese which was okay, though the pasta was a little soft and it was not really flavoursome enough.

Primavera ravioli- $5

My primavera ravioli was a little better in terms of taste- the primavera sauce was not too bad, and more flavoursome than the spaghetti bolognese with its hint of garlic and herbs. The ravioli however, was definitely overcooked and was much too soft- my friend thought it tasted like a dumpling ;)

Mini Sable Viennois

2011-05-26T21:52:00.001+10:00

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from my cooking/baking adventures this year, it would be that I am still a very bad multi-tasker. To make up for the weekends where I don’t bake anything as a result of an assignment/test, or because we’ve run out of milk or eggs or some other important ingredient, I usually end up making many things in one day.

Most of the time, it ends up in disaster.

I attempted to make these cookies following a cookie craving, thanks to Shirley's beautiful pictures and delicious description of these :) I've never actually made cookies like these before, because I'd always known they would have a really high butter content- I generally avoid recipes with a lot of butter ;) But these looked too good not to make, and they were quick too so I made them....whilst I was making lunch.

It should have only taken me a couple of minutes to whip up and bake- but being the cookie noob I am, I didn't realise that the mixture would be too thick to pipe through a plastic bag (I don't have a proper piping bag...) and so, of course, the mixture broke the bag before it got through the nozzle. I also forgot that I didn't have a big nozzle, so I ended up making mini cookies with my cookie press but gave up quickly because rolling them into balls was so much faster :)

In the end, I accidentally left these in the oven too long as I was trying making lunch whilst they were baking. Then I forgot to add flavouring to my lunch, so I ended up with the blandest noodle omlette ....woops? :D But the cookies were so good! They were light and crispy just as I'd imagined them to be. The recipe doesn't make a very big batch, and I found it pretty difficult not the to eat the whole batch up in one go ;) Next time, I'll definitely doubling the recipe!

Pierre Herme's Sable Viennois
from directly from Kokken69

95g Unsalted Butter
1g Fleur de Sel
1/8 tsp Vanilla paste (the recipe originally asked for 2-3 pinches of Vanilla powder)
40g Powdered Sugar
15g Egg White
115g All purpose flour

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk unsalte butter with Fleur de Sel until creamy.
3. Add in powdered sugar and whisk until homogenous and creamy.
4. Add in egg white. (The mixture may curdle a little but it will smoothen out after flour is added)
5. Add in flour and mix until well combined.
6. Scoop batter into a piping bag fitted with a star tip. Pipe circles/wreaths on a lined baking tray.
7. Bake at 180C for 10 -12 mins or until golden brown.
8. Cool down and store in air tight container.

My Easter Break

2011-05-09T22:55:00.004+10:00

The Easter break- my first ever uni break- has come and gone in a flash. (and life after break has been so busy that I haven't had a chance to blog about it until now). To be honest, I was never really looking forward toward this break, knowing that many things were due in after it. Nevertheless, I managed to have some fun and take a break from the boring (but terribly time-consuming) uni work I've been stuck with for quite a while.

Easter Sunday was spent on a little trip to Bilpin for some apple picking- something we do almost every year, though this was the first time we'd come during such a busy period. There wasn't too much variety- mainly pink lady apples, which, I admit, I'd never particularly liked. However, fresh off the tree, they had an amazing texture a deliciously fresh apple taste (I have since been addicted to these apples!).

We also organised a surprise party for our friend, which didn't end up being too much of a surprise, but we all had fun- which is what really matters. We spent a few hours making this rainbow cake, and ran into a few hiccups along the way. But it was well worth the effort- the cake looked amazing! Though it tasted....not quite as spectacular as it looked ;)

We also spent an afternoon at home playing with my new toy- an egg waffle mould that I'd been planning to use since the beginning of the year. It wasn't as hard as I'd imagined it to be, and we managed to produce some pretty great tasting egg waffles, though we have still quite a while to go to master the techniques- I shall get back to you with a proper post on these when I get more practice :)

And lastly, I made this beautiful blueberry cheesecake which I'd actually been meaning to make ever since my first attempt at a blueberry cheesecake. Whilst I was very pleased with the result (surprised, even), and had no problem eating it all up, I wanted to recreate the first cheesecake I have memory of eating, and which made me start liking cheesecakes.

This was the blueberry cheesecake from the Cheesecake Shop- a simple baked cheesecake with a blueberry topping, but with a texture so light, it was only a little firmer than non-baked cheesecakes. To create this light texture, I decided to use this recipe, which incorporated whipped egg whites to give it a lighter texture. The cake was very easy to make, and didn't take me too long to whip up. For the topping, I improvised by heating a punnet of blueberries with a tablespoon of sugar until the consistency looked topping-like.

For the base, I decided to use ginger nuts instead of Marie biscuits, because I wanted a crunchier base. Unfortunately, they were a pain to crush because they were so hard- maybe I should have just used a blender to crush them :) And when I finally crushed them and made my base, I accidentally spilled water onto it :( I tried baking it to evaporate the water off but the base didn't end up tasting that great.....

BUT the cheesecake itself was delicious- I'm starting to think that cheesecake always tastes good, no matter how you make it :) As anticipated, the texture was light, though it was slightly different to the texture of the cheesecake I was trying to recreate. The taste was also slightly different, I think, because there was less sugar in this one, though I found the sweetness to be just right for my tastes. Overall, I was very happy with this cheesecake and I would make it again, although I think I actually like firmer baked cheesecakes better!

Blueberry Baked Cheesecake
taken from Anncoo's Journal

Base - 8" cake tin, grease tin all over and line
100g Marie biscuits, crushed
100g Butter - melted

Mix all the above ingredients and press onto the cake tin base.

Filling:
250g Cream cheese (keep at room temperature before use)
65g Whipping cream
60g Sugar (half portion to egg yolks and egg whites)
3 Egg yolks
3 Egg whites
1/2tsp Vanilla flavour
1/2tsp Lemon juice or lemon oil

1. Cream the cheese and half portion of sugar together and slowly add in the whipping cream together with vanilla flavour and lemon juice. Beat the mixture till light and fluffy and smooth at medium speed. Scrape bowl and egg yolks one at a time until all combined and transfer to a larger bowl.
2. Whisk egg whites and balance sugar till peak form. Use spatula to fold egg whites to cheese mixture. Mixture must be light and not watery.
3. Pour cheese mixture into prepared cake tin.
4. Steam bake at 160C for about 1 hour and leave to cool.
5. Spread blueberry topping (I made my own) onto the cheese cake.
6. Put Blueberry cheese cake in fridge for at least one hour before serving.

Thai Noodle Salad

2011-04-19T21:14:00.001+10:00

In my early high school years (it seems like so long ago now!), my mum would occasionally take us to a take away shop after school to buy fish and chips, which we'd happily devour on our trip home- with me on one side of the back seat, my sister on the other, a fork each and the box between us. We'd eat slowly, trying hard not to make a mess onto the car seat and by the end up the car ride, the car would fill up with the smell of fried food.

From memory, the fish and chips from that shop were not particularly good- but anything deep fried after a tiresome school day would have tasted delicious by our standards. However, there was one thing that kept these few visits so memorable- the salad. Along with the fish and chips, we were allowed to choose any of the salads on offer, and I naturally went for the most exotic sounding one- the thai noodle salad (though I had no idea what thai flavours were).

The salad was made of long slippery cold noodles, coated in a thick sweet sauce, which tasted like sweet chilli sauce, only with a slight taste of peanut butter and a hint of saltiness. Though I can't remember exactly what it tastes like, I do remember it to be terribly addictive and delicious (you know, the type of delicious that keeps you up in the middle of the night just thinking about how good it tastes) and has been embedded into the memory since the first time I had it.

Quite simply, it was the most amazing salad I'd ever tasted!

Unfortunately, the shop was no longer in business by fourth time we went back, instead, being replaced another fish and chips shop. We ordered fish and chips again, but since this new shop didn't offer the thai noodle salad, we chose another salad. The fish and chips weren't bad, but without the salad, it just wasn't the same anymore. That was the last time we went back there.

I never found another thai noodle salad like that one again, so I attempted to make my own at home, after seeing this recipe. The dressing had sweet chilli sauce and peanut butter- the two things I actually remember tasting in the salad, so I had a go to see what it would taste like. Funnily enough, the dressing was very similar to the sauce I used on the Thai Chicken Pizza I made last year. I only followed the recipe for the dressing, and used whatever I had in my fridge for the rest of the salad (I used spaghetti because I remembered noodle in the original salad to be more spaghetti like :D)

And the verdict?? Although the salad was delicious in its own right (I could see where its high ratings were coming from), I was slightly disappointed that it didn't taste much like the one I had in mind. The peanut butter taste was a bit too strong and the sweet chilli taste too weak but it did spark a bit of a memory- and I had no problem gobbling the whole thing down myself! I'll definitely be trying this recipe again, but tweaking the ingredients a bit-so hopefully, I'll be back soon with an even better recipe to share! :D

Thai Noodle Salad
Recipe from here
Note: I halved the recipe, which made enough for myself- so this recipe should make around 2-4 servings, rather than the 20 stated on the website!

1 (12 ounce) package angel hair pasta
3 cups shredded napa cabbage
4 large carrots, shredded
1 small green bell pepper, chopped
1 small red bell pepper, chopped
1 small yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
1 bunch fresh green onions, chopped
1/2 cup chopped peanuts
2 tablespoons toasted black sesame seeds
8 ounces frozen cooked shrimp, thawed and drained

1/4 cup peanut butter
2 tablespoons tahini
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup sweet chili sauce
5 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Break pasta into small pieces and add to boiling water; cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain. In a large bowl, toss together the pasta, cabbage, carrots, green, red and yellow bell peppers, 1/2 of the cilantro, 1/2 of the onions, and shrimp.
2. In a small bowl, stir together the peanut butter, tahini, rice wine vinegar and sweet chile sauce. Season with soy sauce, sesame oil, brown sugar, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Ten minutes before serving, toss the sauce with the cabbage mixture until evenly coated. Garnish with remaining cilantro, green onions, peanuts and black sesame seeds.

Eating Out in Newtown!

2011-04-08T20:43:00.000+10:00

Whilst I could make a pretty extensive list of the things I don't like about uni, here are a couple of things I do like

1. Not having to do certain subjects I don't like *ahem* english *ahem*

2. Being able to finish early on some days (even if I don't get home until much later....)

3. Meeting some pretty awesome new friends :D

4. The clubs and societies, which are pretty interesting (oh...and the free food!)

5. The location of my uni

Let me explain. Despite the long trip to uni, I do love the fact that my uni is situated near some pretty interesting suburbs I'd read about before (on food blogs of course!) but had never any idea as to where they were. Being slightly adventurous, I headed off to Newtown for lunch with a friend (in the second week of uni), a suburb which I'd heard many wonderful things about. Not knowing exactly where it was, we caught the train to Newtown and wandered along the big street until we passed many thai restaurants, eventaully settling for this one, as it was already busy. Pad Kee Mao- $6.50

Inside, it was incredibly busy and loud with the chatter of the many groups of uni students amongst the background of the roaring kitchen. Most of the tables are already taken, and we were ushered to a small table. Luckily, the waitresses were too busy to take our order quickly- so I had plenty of time to choose what to order. The lunch special menu, which was incredibly cheap ($6.50), was also quite extensive with everything ranging from curries to stir fries. I settled for this Pad Kee Mao- soft rice noodles, stir fried with chilli and basil. It's a very generous size for its price, and I love the sweet sauce which coats the noodles- it's terribly addictive.

Black Rice Pudding

Half way through the meal, the waitresses offered us dessert, which we hesitantly took, not knowing whether or not we had to pay for it. This small serving of black rice pudding- a delicious combination of cooked black rice, mixed with coconut milk- was the perfect way to end the meal. Being a huge fan of coconut, I loved this dessert, and could have easily gulped down a few more servings!

Pad Kee Mao- $6.50

A week later, I find myself back at Newtown, this time with another friend who I've managed to find with the same break as me (yay!). Making sure to check the map before wandering off, we avoided the lengthy train trip and walk, to find that simply walking here from uni it much much quicker. This means we do arrive quite early- earlier than the restaurants open, which is why we find ourselves in this restaurant- which opened its doors a little earlier than the others.

After spending quite a while deciding over what to order, I settle for the Pad Kee Mao again, in hope for a similarly satisfying dish as last time. The dish arrives superfast, and looks promising, though quite different from last weeks- and it tastes so too. It uses less sauce and so it drier and has much less of a sweet flavour, with the emphasis more on the chilli and the basil. Though I do prefer the previous one better, I do enjoy this one too and would happily order it again.

Deep fried pork with rice $6.50

My friend's order of deep fried pork comes as a surprisingly large dish which looks so good I probably would have ordered it if I'd seen someone else eating it :) And it tasted as good as it looked- big pieces of pork, deep fried with a crispy crumbed batter were served with a sweet chilli sauce, along with a big mound of rice. My friend didn't manage to finish it all herself- I had not problem helping her out!

Cinnamon Rolls :)

2011-03-18T22:00:00.003+11:00

Uni has been going okay, though, as you might've been able to tell through my lack of posting, it's been very busy.

And it's been putting my mind into a slightly nervous state.

I'm disliking the responsibility of having to find out and remember dates of quizzes and due dates for assignments- especially as there are so many to remember in addition all the other things I should be doing everyday. My travel strips off a huge chunk of my day, so midnight always arrives much too early, leaving me very agitated as I'm always worrying there's something important I should have done.

I'd like to think that I'm a very positive and carefree person, but I'm starting to see that subconsciously I'm quite a worry wart- as my mother often tells me. When I caught the bus to uni for the first time, I checked the same timetable (for the exact same bus) countless times, starting from a week before the trip right up until the morning of the trip. In the first week of uni, I found myself looking at my timetable, more than hourly, eventhough I'd actually memorised all the classes off by heart, as well as the location and the routes to each of the buildings. And often checking once more before entering the room- just incase I'd misread.

I know all this worrying and checking is stupid, pointless and unneccesary (and I could probably construct a pretty convincing argument as to why) but it happens and I'm sure it'll gradually decrease as I get used to uni- I don't check my bus or uni timetable anymore!

Anyways, here's something a lot more interesting than my life at the moment- cinnamon rolls! I've never actually had cinnamon rolls before- so I was very surprised at how good they tasted! The buns were extremely soft- probably one of the softest buns I've ever made (though this probably had something to do with the fact that I accidently added more water than I was supposed to) and so delicious I almost couldn't stop myself from eating it all in one go!

Oh. And if you were wondering, this was made with a recipe which I reread a billion times before and during the making of it! You know. Just incase I misread something very impmortant ;)

Cinnamon Rolls
recipe from Pioneer Woman via A Southern Grace

Dough:
2 cups milk
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
4 cups + 1/2 cup flour, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon (scant) baking soda
1/2 teaspoon (heaping) baking powder

Filling:
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
4 tablespoons ground cinnamon

Glaze:
4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon maple flavoring
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons brewed coffee
pinch of salt

Make ahead: Combine milk, 1/2 cup sugar and oil in a large pot over medium heat. Heat, stirring to dissolve sugar, until just before boiling. Remove from heat and set aside to cool for about an hour or until lukewarm (between 105° – 115°F; use a thermometer to check). Sprinkle the yeast into the warm milk mixture and allow to sit for a few minutes. Add 4 cups of flour and stir together until a sticky dough forms. Cover loosely with a kitchen towel and let rise somewhere warm for about an hour. In a small bowl, whisk together remaining 1/2 cup of flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add to dough and combine thoroughly to form an elastic dough. Spray the inside of a large bowl with cooking spray. Put dough in the bowl, cover tightly, and store in the refrigerator overnight, or up to a day.

Assembly: Spray 3 9-inch round cake pans with cooking spray. Generously flour a clean, dry surface. Place half the dough on the floured surface and using a rolling pin, roll out into a large rectangle. Gently spread 1/2 cup of softened butter over the dough with a butter knife. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of cinnamon and 1/2 cup of sugar over the buttered dough.

Starting on the longer side of the rectangle, roll dough in a tight spiral toward the other end and pinch the seam shut. Slide a strand of dental floss under the rolled dough 1-1½ inches from the end. Cross the ends of the floss over the top of the roll and pull in opposite directions, slicing off a section of dough. Repeat with the rest of the dough, placing buns in the prepared pan. You will have space between the buns.

Repeat with the second half of the dough. (If you only want to make one batch of buns, you can tightly wrap and freeze the other half at this point. In that case, use half the amount of the ingredients for the glaze.)

Set aside to rise for 30-45 minutes. Bake in 350°F oven for 15-18 minutes, or until lightly browned on top.

Make glaze: Mix together all ingredients and stir well until smooth. It should be thick but pourable. Taste and adjust as needed. Generously drizzle over the warm rolls.

Note: I didn't make the glaze...which is why my rolls look so bare at the top!

Chocolate Biscuit Pudding

2011-03-04T21:32:00.002+11:00

I started uni on Monday!!! *gasp* ;)

Yup- after waking up terribly early at 6:30 (considering i usually wake up at around 10) and wondering whether the time on my clock was was actually the right time, then taking an hour and a half bus ride, which abruptly ended long before my stop, leading to much panic as I tried to find another bus, then arrived at the uni only to get confused as to where the lecture theatre actually was, I finally settled down into my first lecture (and met a really nice person too) :)

So a week on, what do I think of it?

Well- I'm not exactly thinking at the moment. I never realised how tiring 4 hours travelling everyday would so tiring, or how boring maths lectures could be. And I hate 8am maths lectures with a passion. Still- it's interesting, with all the meeting new people, bumping into high school friends, trying to find places and joining clubs (I'm still sad we don't have a food lovers club though *sigh* I guess the chocolate society will have to do). I sort of miss high school but in a way, I'm sort of happy to be in the next 'stage' of my life.

The other day we passed the suburb where we used to live when I was small which brought back many memories. It seems not too long ago that I was in preschool, madly screaming and banging on doors as my mother left me or when I started kindergarten, barely knowing english (I still don't remember how I quite communicated with others).

I actually feel a lot older now that I'm around all these 'big' people. A lot older than I'd like to feel, when inside, I know I'm still quite childish- I like to wear T shirts with huge cartoons on them, I like playing with cute stuffed toys, I like bright colourful things.....and I don't like coffee ;)

Which is all very well as this tiramisu looking dessert (as noted by grub) is actually chocolate biscuit pudding. No coffee whatsoever :) It's incredibly good, with deliciously rich chocolately mousse sandwiched between layers of milk soaked marie biscuits and scattered with cashews to give it some crunch. The crazily high amount of butter, chocolate, and whipped cream makes it terribly unhealthy but it's so good it's worth it!

I made this with my friends during the summer holidays and we had a very fun afternoon playing around with this recipe. We didn't quite have enough time to chill it until set (and wanted to eat it before we went home), which is why these photos are of a slice of melted and then rechilled pudding- but it's still so good!

Chocolate Biscuit Pudding
Recipe from here

8 oz chocolate chips
8 ozs butter, at room temperature
3 eggs
10 ozs Marie Biscuits (we used 1.5 packets)
3/4 cups sugar
1 cup whipped cream
1 cup milk
1 cup chopped cashew nuts
1 tbsp Rum (optional)
1 tsp Vanilla
Pinch of salt

1. Combine chocolate, rum, 1/4 cup water, and the vanilla in a heat-proof bowl. Set it over a pan of simmering water just until the chocolate melts. Cool completely to room temperature. Whisk butter until combined. Set aside.
2. Place egg whites, the salt, and 1 tablespoon of the sugar in a bowl. Beat on high speed until firm but not dry.
3. Place the egg yolks and the rest of the sugar in a bowl. Beat on high speed until pale yellow. With the mixer on low speed, add the chocolate mixture.
4. Whisk 1/4 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture; then fold the rest in carefully with a rubber spatula.
5. Fold the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture.
6. Soak the biscuits in milk slightly. Layer a bottom of a square pan with them. Next layer with chocolate mixture (about 1/2 inch high). Sprinkle with cashew nuts. Follow with another layer of soaked biscuits and then the chocolate mixture and cashew nuts. Continue layering until all of the chocolate mixture is over. Make sure that the top layer is chocolate mixture and cashew nuts.
Chill for at least 2 hours

Hong Kong 2010 :)

2011-02-25T18:38:00.000+11:00

It's about time I documented what I did for a huge chunk of the holidays, which was, of course, going overseas -to a place I've been a billion times but I still LOVE- Hong Kong :) I know I'd never get around to writing about everything during my trip so here's a few of my more memorable meals, mostly for my future reference :)

Egawa Sushi (江川壽司)

Sashimi Rice $36 (~$5 AUD) with miso soup, seaweed and dessert (mochi)

One of our first meals out in Hong Kong was at Egawa Sushi, which we found after walking around the whole shopping centre just to find something to eat. It had an extensive illustrated menu but we stayed with the afternoon menu which was ridiculously cheap (by Australian standards anyway) and the food did not dissappoint either. We ordered a sashimi rice which was a deliciously colourful array of small sashimi cubes on a very big mound of rice, lightly flavoured with soy sauce and vinegar.

Pork Bone Ramen $34 (~$4AUD) with salmon nigiri and mochi

I ordered the pork bone ramen, thinking that the pork bone referred the broth - so I was surprised to find actually pieces of pork bones within the ramen! The soft bones tasted like hard tendons were really yummy along with tender and flavoursome pork meat.

Sam's Place (天然居海鮮酒家) Corn and Fish Cakes

Who could go to Hong Kong without having Yum Cha? With breakfast/morning specials (here, $11.8 HKD per dish), yum cha is extremely afforable. At the bright hours 10 in the morning (I'm not usually awake at this time if I'm at home...), the restaurant is fairly quiet, mostly with small groups of old grannies and grandpas. The system of choosing food by ticking from a piece of paper makes sure that everything arrives very hot and cooked to order. Unfortunately, it makes ordering a lot more difficult for people who can't read chinese- thank goodness I have my mum :)

These corn and fish cakes arrive steaming hot. The golden brown fish cakes are essentially fritters of fish paste, dotted with kernels of corn. Both flavoursome and crispy, we have no problem gulping them down within seconds.

Steamed Thousand layer buns/cake

The layers on this are clearly countable and nowhere near a thousand but this is an addictive treat, with layers of steamed bun and yellow custard.

Fried Salad Rolls
One of my favourites are these rolls, deep fried with a thin crispy exterior, and a delicious salad like filling of prawns and various fruits in a pool of mayonnaise.

Tum Yum Thai

My uncle recommended this local thai restaurant to us which was popular with the locals due to the authentic and affordable food. We didn't find the food that great but it did however turn out to be one of my most unforgettable meals, thanks very much to this fish.

This is basically a big fish stuffed with herbs, marinated with lots of salt and grilled until pretty much half burnt. The fish itself was tender but tasted quite ordinary- the crispy skin looks very appetisting but is covered in a layer of salt and is probably not meant to be eaten.

Yeh lam Kok (椰林閣餐廳)
Vermicelli $24HKD (~ $3AUD) with hot drink
This small comfy restaurant is the perfect place for us to rest our sore feet after hours of shopping amongst the busy streets of Mong Kok. The vermicelli is fairly generous for its price and very flavoursome. Unforunately, the vermicelii is a little on the stiff side, leaving us wishing they'd cooked the whole dish a little longer. (We later ordered this again at another branch and it was much better)

Baked Coocnut Chicken Curry $25 HKD (~$3AUD) with drink
The coconut curry is a lot better, with its addictively delicious coconutty sauce and tender chicken pieces. We particularly like the edges, where the sauces has dried up and gone crunchy (if a little burnt).

A Shanghainese Restraurant with no english name :S

We stumbled across a Shanghainese restaurant whilst shopping at Diamond Hill. Not wanting to eat any thai, japanese or vietnamese (as we were buffeting at night) we chose something we didn't eat often. The meal itself was memorable, both because of the fact that we rarely eat shanghainese food in Hong Kong and because it was delicious.

The xiao long baos (from memory which came with my la mein meal) were easily the best xiao long baos I've ever had with a thin wrapping and insides filled with water which didn't burst too easily. We almost ordered anoter steamer of them!

Red Ant Restaurant

Noodles $40HKD(~ $5 AUD) with drink
I've always liked red ant restaurant, not for its food but more for it's very pretty interior design which makes me feel that I'm eating at a much more expensive restaurant. We stopped here for afternoon tea after shopping and shared 2 meals between the three of us as we were going to dinner shortly after. The portions were pretty big for afternoon tea and weren't dissappointing either!

Japanese Curry $40HKD (~ $5 AUD) with drink
This japenese curry tastes almost identical to the ones we make from the box sauces but it wasn't expensive and I loved it all the same :)

Metropark Hotel (Mong Kok)
We had lunch at metropark hotel which was rather cheap for a hotel but also slightly dissappointing as I'd always imagined hotels looking much prettier and have a better selection of food. Still, it was a far cry from the usual RSL buffets in Australia and I had a great time!

I loved that they had baked snails because I hadn't had them for AGES....but was dissappointed as they were not hot and the snails themselved were really chewy :(

The dessert selection was the highlight for me- I think I tried 90% of all the desserts. The cheesecake was delicious and it wasn't only me who thought so- they dissappeared so quickly that my mum missed out :( The chestnut tarts were also really good- they had a deliciously flaky tart shell with a sweet creamy chestnut cream filling :)

So, I'm not too good with long posts, so I'll stop there for now...there'll be more up soon!

Honeycomb Crips (糖環)

2011-02-17T15:24:00.003+11:00

It's only just starting to hit me that the holidays are ending soon, and I might never have this much time to bum around again until the end of the year :( So I've gotten off my lazy butt and started doing the things I had meant to do since I came back from holidays.

Just yesterday, I turned on the oven for the first time since I came back and baked a couple of pots of creme caramel -a recipe which I've made a billion times (but have yet to upload onto this blog) But then I went to watch a movie .......and completely forgot about it until a whole hour later (double the time they should have spent in the oven). Strangely enough, they turned out to be the best batch I've ever made- almost perfectly smooth and silky (perhaps because my electric oven is a lot cooler than my gas one which I usually use?)

So yes, I've officially re-entered baking land and have started going through all those recipes I've bookmarked over the last couple of months (most of which I'd completely forgotten about). Meanwhile, here's another chinese new year snack we made a while ago. I'm not quite sure how to name them but they're basically a sweet coconutty batter (sort of like a pancake batter)deep fried until crispy- and they're terribly addictive too!

To make, these, you need a special mould (like the one in the instructions on this site). I'm not sure whether you can buy them in Australia... We bought ours in Hong Kong- we're buying one or two different moulds everytime we go to there now and are slowly building up our 'special mould' collection :) So I might have a few interesting Asian snacks up on this blog soon!(egg waffles anyone?)

Coconut Sweer Rings (糖環)

140g plain flour
140g cornflour
3 eggs
140g sugar
1 cup each of coconut milk and evaporated milk, mixed

1. Beat the sugar and the ggs until fluffy
2. Add flour and mized milk in batches alternately to the egg mixture. This should be done in 4 additions (beat thoroughly after each addition). Set aside for 1 hour.
3. Heat oil (to deep fry) to meadium heat. Place mould in the oil for a few seconds (until hot) and then remove from oil.
4. Coat mould with flour mixture carefully (dip the mould into the batter)
5. Place the mould in the hot oil. The cooked rings will separate from the mould after frying (we used chopsticks to help them off). Deep fry until golden brown. Drain well and place in an airtight container when cold- they should keep for 1-2 months.
Note: If the oil is too hot, the rings will become brown really quickly and not shape well

Chinese New Year Snacks ....

2011-02-09T14:07:00.000+11:00

I'm back!

So. I realise I've been gone for quite a while now, half because of holidays but mainly because of reasons associated with laziness, but let's not worry about that now :)

Well, since it's a little past chinese new year, and I have so much time on my hands right now before uni, I got a chance to try out a couple of Chinese new year snack recipes! We make these fried pastries almost every year but this is really the first time we've come close to success- perhaps because of the recipe or because of experience. In chinese, they're called 角仔, which litterally translates into 'litle horns' because of their shape but are actually pastries filled with a sweet peanutt-y filling.

I'm pretty terrible at pleating the dough though- mine all turn out more ike a child's first attempt at pleating dumplings than anything (the ones in the photos are probably my mum's ) but it's still fun getting my hands all oily and sugary :)

New Year Crispy Triangles (角仔)
(as named by the chinese cookbook I got the recipe from)

640g flour
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup lard (I replaced with butter)
125g water

320g fried shelled peanuts (I'm not quite sure what that means- I just used plain peanuts)
80g fried white sesame seeds (we used plain white sesame)
240g white sugar
2 Tbs desiccated coconut (I doubled this becuase I like coconut)

1. Grind peanut and mix with sesame, sugar and coconut to form filling
2. Sieve flour onto tabletop and make a well in the middle
3. Add eggs and lard and mix. Gradually pour in water, kneading at the same time until a soft dough is formed
4. Cover with damp cloth and set aside for 30 minutes
5. Roll dough out with a rolling pin and cut rounds with a saucer (we used a cup). Wrap in filling and fold edges in a zigzag pattern.
6. Deep fry on low heat until golden brown and the pastries float to the top (about 8-10 minutes although I'm pretty sure ours didn't take that long.....)

Merry Christmas!!

2010-12-26T02:45:00.001+11:00

I haven't blogged for AGES and I promise I will soon, but just before it gets to 12am, I'd like you wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Featherlight cheesecake

2010-11-16T23:24:00.003+11:00

The first sight you'd see if you walked into a primary school classroom would be the interesting artworks, mounted onto brightly coloured cardboard strung up in neat rows above your head and stuck onto onto every bit of wall. There'd always be the beautiful artworks which immediately draw your attention and there'd be the simple and ordinary artworks surrounding it, quickly forgotten unless it was created by yourself or your own child. My artworks always fell into the latter category- I was never the artistic type. My drawings only ever barely resembled what I'd attempt to draw. My paintings were even worse. And I could never get my colour combinations right.

In the first two years of high school, when I did visual arts, I always got average marks. I remember the first, and only, time I ever got a full marks for a cartoon, in which I'd drawn fruits simply because they were colourful and easy to draw. I was completely perplexed as to why I'd done so well, when so many others which I'd found very impressive scored lower whilst mine consisterd of simple line drawings with circles for eyes and a line for a mouth, like this :)

As much as I found other people's artworks impressive, nothing quite compared to my amazement the day we chanced upon my friend, Steph's, artbook. She'd been in a different class and so I'd never seen any of her artwork, but when we accidently pulled her book out of the cupboard, we only needed to turn to her title page to be completely mesmerised by her artwork. We spent the remainder of the lesson slowly marvelling through her beautiful drawings and paintings. I'd never seen anything quite as amazing in real life and to this day, I'm still amazed by all her artwork- so much so that I was inspired to do something I hadn't done for ages- pick up a pencil and draw something.

Never one to learn to walk before running, I decided that while I was at it, I might as well fulfill my mother's wish of having a portrait of her drawn (a wish she's had even before I was born) so I grabbed a nice photo of her, a blank piece of paper and set about sketching her face. I picked up my pencil, slowly tracing out the shape before slowly sketching each and every little detail and actually found myself enjoying it! Before I knew it, hours had passed, the side of my hand had been coloured dark grey and I'd created my first portrait.

It was a rather amateur and childish attempt, probably describable as cute more than anything and definitely miles and miles and miles away from Steph's artwork. But still, the face was immediately recognisable, if a little dispropotioned and unlike anything I'd ever done before. And I was proud of it.

It's amazing how far a little effort can really get you!

But putting a little effort sometimes isn't quite as easy as it seems. With my cakes I always think that if I just put that teenie weenie bit more effort into decorating the cakes, they'd look a lot more presentable. But despite planning to do so, I always find I put so much too much time and effort into making sure that the cake itself tastes great, that by the time I get around to icing and 'decorating', I'll just slather the frosting on and hope for the best.

Decorating a cake prettily for me is an especially difficult task because I'm not a creative person. I can't just think of a nice way to arrange decorations on a cake and even when I'm copying a design, it never turns out quite right. But not being creative is not an excuse for anything- it means working harder to make up for it. My usual solution to any situation which requires creativity, whether it be designing something, decorating a cake or writing a creative writing piece, is to get inspiration from others. This is the reason I have a whole pile of cake shop brochures from Hong Kong which I look at whenever I'm baking a sponge cake.

I was determined to make this cake look good, so I chose a simple design- one which really could go wrong. One which requires close to no skill but still looks amazing. This cake design is completely copied from the bakery Patisserie-C'est Mieux. Admittedly, I don't actually remember taking the brochure in the first place, but their cake designs were all simple yet beautiful.

For the cake, I decided to use a cheesecake simply because that was what was used in the brochure- and it gave me an excuse to try this featherlight cheesecake from Wendy's blog. True to it's name, it was very light- perhaps one of the lightest cakes I've ever made. I made the mistake of taking it out of the oven too early (because I think my electric oven is a little on the cool side) and had to put it back in the oven again after it had cooled considerably and then accidently left it in the oven after turning it off. This left the bottom half of the cake really weird but the top half of the cake was still perfect- light (but in a different way to most sponges) and delicious but surprisingly not cheesy!!

As for the cake decorating, it didn't come out as beautifully as in the brochure- I should have used a bigger spoon and fork and my fruit arrangement is rather messy but it still looked pretty good and I was proud of it =) It'll probably be a while until I start thinking of my own designs but I think I'll take it one step at a time!

Featherlight Cheesecake from Wendy

250gm milk
20gm butter
125gm cream cheese(room temperature)

50gm flour
3 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
80gm sugar

Pinch of salt
½ Tbsp cocoa powder (I omitted this)
1 Tbsp boiling water (I omitted this)

1. Line the base of a 8 inch square pan and preheat the oven at 150/160C.
2. In a medium sized bowl, cream cream cheese until smooth.
3. Bring milk and butter to a boil and pour ¼ of it into cream cheese and gently stir until incorporated. Pour in another ¼ the milk and stir again. Lastly pour in all the milk and stir until smooth. (At this point, prepare some boiling water)
4. Let the cheese mixture cool down and put in flour. Mix until smooth. Then put in egg yolks and vanilla. Mix until smooth.
5. In another clean bowl, beat egg whites until frothy. Put in salt and cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks. Put in sugar gradually and beat until stiff.
6. Put 1/3 of egg whites into cheese mixture and fold gently but quickly.
7. Pour the cheese mixture into the egg whites and fold until well incorporated.
8. Mix cocoa powder with boiling water until smooth. Put in a few tablespoons of the cheese batter and mix until a smooth chocolatey batter is formed.Pour main cheese batter into prepared pan. Drizzle chocolate batter over main cheese batter. Use a knife and cut through the batter to create a marbling effect.(I skipped this step)
9. Put pan into slightly bigger but shallower pan. Fill the bigger pan with boiling water until halfway up and bake for 50-60 minutes.
10. When cake is baked, remove from oven and release the sides of the cake from the pan immediately by running a knife between the sides of the cake and the pan. Leave it to cool down totally and chill until cold before cutting.

Pad Thai

2010-11-13T20:16:00.000+11:00

I love watching my mother cook.

There's something mesmerising about the way she moves swiftly through the kichen that keeps me standing there, watching her for hours. I love the unique way she cooks, the way she manoeuvres the spatula and her clever tricks -for instance, the way she loads up the wok with raw veggies and scoops them with the wok lid before they start to wilt, to cook them all without them falling out. I love how effortless she makes cooking seem, simply tossing all the ingredients in our tiny wok, so that each an every piece is cooked equally.

It isn't as easy as it seems- I would know. Everytime I try cooking in a wok, I feel more like I'm folding the ingredients roughly rather than cooking, and I can't seem to cook everything evenly, no matter how hard I try to mimic my mother's movements. The first time I tried to cook vegetables, my mum told me to add oyster sauce, and copying the way she adds wine, I poured it around the vegetables, straight onto the flaming hot wok. Of course, it immediately sizzled fiercely and burnt, creating a mess, much to my mother's annoyance. I stayed away from cooking for a while.

I think one of the reasons why I have more of an interest in baking than cooking is because no one else in this household already does it well. There isn't anyone to constantly tell me what I'm doing wrong- I can do whatever I want, learn from my mistakes and figure things out myself. And importantly, there's a slightly greater sense of satisfaction in succeeeding where no one else you know has succeeded before.

So it'll come to no surprise that my cooking hardly ever features on this blog- I rarely 'cook'. And when I do, you'll most likely find my cooking up something new and different to what my mother would usually cook, like this pad thai- one of the few dishes I regularly cook. At first I was a little scared of stir frying, especially as the noodles could possibly stick to the work and cause a mess. Luckily they didn't and the recipe really couldn't be any simpler- it's just a matter of mixing up a sauce which consists of 4 ingredients, and then stir frying it with rice noodles and whatever else you feel like throwing in =)

We were also quite skeptical of the recipe at first because of the one strange ingredient we'd never even heard of before- tamarind. It is extremely pungent as other blogger had me warned, infact so stinky, the first time we made it, we were almost sure that it wouldn't work out. But we were pleasantly surprised when it did and it was so good, that I could immediately think of plenty of pad thai dishes I'd had at restaurants that were inferior to this.

This pad thai has since become our go to dish whenever we're looking for something different for dinner. We usually make a huge pot of sauce and keep the remainder in the freezer (which led to a really cool discovery- it doesn't actually become solid in the freeer!) and then stir fry it with the noodles whenever we feel like a pad thai.

And thanks very much to this recipe, I've had plenty of practice with stir frying- I think I'll soon be able to cook like my mum!! (or...maybe not.......)

Pad Thai
from Chez Pim via Use Real Butter

vegetable oil (for frying)
12 oz. chicken (2 oz. per serving)
4 cloves (10g) minced garlic (about 1/2+ clove per serving) sauce (see below) (about 1/4 cup per serving)
1 lb. (500g) rice noodles, soaked in warm water to soften (but not too soft)
6 eggs (1 egg per serving)
1 lb. shrimp, peeled and deveined (4-6 shrimp per serving)
1 cup (155g) ground peanuts (1-2 tbsps per serving)
3-4 cups bean sprouts (1/2 cup per serving)
1/2 cup (75g) pickled turnips, chopped (1+ tbsp per serving)
1 cup garlic chives or green onions, chopped (2 tbsps per serving)
moresprouts (garnish)
fresh limes (garnish)

sauce
1/2 cup (130g) tamarind paste
1/2 cup (120g) fish sauce
1/3 cup (75g) brown sugar
1 tbsp (9g) chili powder (to taste- I omit this)

Make the sauce: Over a low flame, heat the tamarind, fish sauce, and brown sugar together until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the chili powder a teaspoon at a time to desired spiciness. (I sometimes add a teaspoon or two of dark soy sauce to deepen the colour- the colour of the sauce will depend on the colour of your ingredients) Bring the sauce to a simmer. Turn off the heat (keep sauce warm).

Make the pad thai: [The key is to cook up 1-2 servings at a time!] Heat 2-3 tablespoons ofoil in wok or large frying pan over high heat. Add 2 ounces of chicken andstir-fry until it is half cooked. Add 1-2 tablespoons of sauce, and a pinch of
garlic. Stir around and add about 2 cups of loosely packed (for me, a big handful)of rice noodles plus 1/4 cup of sauce to the pan and stir vigorously until the noodles soften. If it dries out, you can add some water. Push the noodles to the side and crack an egg into the pan. Let the egg cook for 10 seconds and then toss the noodles and egg together in the pan. Drop 4-6 shrimp, a couple of tablespoons of ground peanuts, a heaping tablespoon of turnip, and 1/2 cup of sprouts into the pan. Stir fry until the shrimp are just cooked (very fast – about a minute). Toss in the green onions or garlic chives and remove from heat. Serve hot with more sprouts, ground peanuts, and lime wedges for garnish.

Freedom.....tastes even better than this tart!

2010-11-07T19:28:00.000+11:00

I'm free I'm free I'm free I'm free!!!!

As some of you have already figured out, I've finished my HSC (on Thursday, to be exact)! Unfortunately, I've only been able to write up this post becasue I've been:

1. busy celebrating :) Although in my world, celebrating involves lots of sleep, baking and relaxing...
2. busy de-cluttering my life of study related things- which involves throwing out lots and lots of paper and trying to somehow organise the leftovers for my sister incase she ever needs it.
3. too lazy to type out the recipe below :)

Unfortunately, the exams didn't quite end as spectacularly as I'd hoped.....I don't remember much about the exam itself, as I was too busy looking forward to after the exam. But I did finish the exam busting to go to the toilet, so much so that I couldn't hold it in any longer and had to rush out whilst the exam supervisors were collecting the papers :S If I ever do a three hour long exam again, I'll remember not to bring in my drink bottle, or drink much water beforehand.....

But it is still the end, and I couldn't really be happier that the exams are finally over! Waking up and realising that I don't need to study today is really one of the best feeling. Ever.

I don't think I've completely gotten out of study mode yet- it feels a little weird to not have to cram some useless information into my head everyday. Even my parents think I'm going to study, whenever I make my way to my table, only to realise that don't need to anymore!

The first thing I did when I got home after the exam (after pigging out during lunch), was to grab the mixing bowl and electric mixer and start making my favourite pound cake. It was great to once again hear the familiar sound of the electric beater whirring and scraping the plastic bowl and smell the delicious scents of butter and egg wafting out of the oven! I do really really love baking =)

Which is why I couldn't resist making this decadent chocolate tart during the exam period- the perfect way to make countless hours of boring studying slightly better =) I've wanted to make a chocolate tart for a while now, but this recipe really caught my attention because of the layer of light sponge cake, underneath the rich chocolate truffle filling. Don't you just love it how Asians find a way to put a piece of sponge cake in almost any dessert??

The tart comprises of four main components- the pastry, the sponge, the truffle filling and the chocolate glaze. I thought it was weird how the glaze had less glucose than the filling (since glucose is supposed to make it shiny?) and found that the filling and the glaze were pretty much the same thing and so they sort of became one layer. My filling also wasn't as soft and shiny as that in the book, which I suspect may have something to with the fact that I used thickened cream???

But the taste of the tart exceeded all expectations, and we instantly fell in love the with smooth chocolate filling, coupled with the light, chocolate sponge and delicious chocolate tart pastry. This recipe's definitely a keeper- it's not too hard to guess what I'll be making in these next few weeks!!

Chocolate Truffle Tart
From Dessert for You by Rachel Yau

Cocoa Sponge Base
75g eggs (around 1 and a hlaf eggs)
35g sugar
50g cake flour
45g butter
30g milk
10g cocoa

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Sieve flour and cocoa together.
2. Healt the milk and add butter. Stir until it melts
3. Beat the eggs with an electric mixer until foamy. Add sugar and beat until pale and thick.
4. Sieve in flour and cocoa. Fold in without disturbing the bubbles too much. Add the butter and milk mixture from step 2 and stir gently until well mixed
5. Pour in the batter into a baking tray. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Turn the cake out while still hot. Leave it to cool.

Cocoa Pie crust (pastry)
100g flour
20g cocoa
60g butter
1/2 egg (beaten)
30g sugar

1. In a bowl, rub flour, cocoa, butter and sugar with your fingertips until crumbly.
2. Add beaten egg and knead well (I had to add a few drops of milk so that the dough would come together. Wrap the dough in cling wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
3. line the counter with cling wrap. Place the chilled dough over the cling wrap. Place anothing cling wrap on the dough. Roll it out until 1cm thick.
4. Place the rolled dough into the 8 inch round mould. Make sure the crusts go all the way up the vertical sides of the mould. Trim off the excess above the rim. Pierce all over with a fork. Line the crust with baking paper and fill with baking beans.
5. Blind bake the crust at 180C for 10 minutes. Remove the baking paper and baking beans. Bake for 10 minute more. Leave to cool to room temperature.

Chocolate Truffle Filling
100g dark chocolate
115ml whipping cream
40g butter
11g liquid glucose
15ml rum (I omitted this)

1. Chop the chocolate up.
2. Heat the whipping cream until tit bubbles gently then add chopped chocolate, rum and glucose. Stir until they melt. Leave to cool.

Chocolate Glaze
100g dark chocolate
40ml milk
3.5g liquid glucose
3.5g butter

Boil the milk gently and stir in the chocolate until it melts. Add glucose and butter. Stir well and turn off the heat.

To Assemble
1. Brush the inside of the pastry with melted chocolate. Put in the chocolate sponge base. Spread the chocolate truffle filling over the sponge. Refrigerate until set.
2. Pour the chocolate glaze on top and spread evenly. Sprinkle cocoa powder and garnish.

Thai chicken pizza

2010-11-01T15:23:00.004+11:00

'You give what you want not what you don't want'

These were the words of my best friend in year 4, when I gave her a little gift. It was a bag of bright pink 'magic' sand with which we'd been playing with a couple days before- I could tell she really liked it. I casually remarked 'Oh, I didn't want it anymore' not because I actually didn't want it, but I don't know about you, but I feel bad when someone gives me something they really like. I didn't really think about how it would make it feel like accepting someone else's rubbish =S

These same words ran through my head, as my mother rummaged through our pantry to find packets of lollies and chocolate to hand out to the little trick-or-treating kids. We found many packets of opened chocolates and lollies, even more packets of unopened chocolates, easter eggs (hehe..at least they were from this year's easter?) and loads and loads of expired confectionary which filled our bins pretty quickly. (only the perfect, unopened, unexpired ones went to the little kiddies, I assure you) I don't think our pantry has had quite a clean out since last halloween!

We ended up getting two knocks on our door- the most we've ever had :) I guess halloween is getting more popular now- I was delighted when I saw one of our neighbours decorated their house, if only for one night, with fake spiderwebs and pumpkins!

Unfortunately, I was stuck at home, bored, ~~studying~~ cramming for legal studies exam today. On a brighter note, I only have one more exam to go! Yay!

I'm rather proud of myself for not blogging for *gasp* two weeks (okayokay....so maybe I've done so before, but not during an exam period!). But of course, I couldn't resist staying away from the kitchen. So on the one day my parents were out, I snuck into the kitchen to make pizza!

I've never had a non tomato sauce based pizza before, so I did find this slightly weird at first. I only used the recipe for the base and the sauce and then I topped it with some left overs and whatever else I could find in the fridge which didn't take too long to chop up ;P I absolutely loved the sauce- it was so addictive that I had only intended to eat half the pizza but then accidently gulped the whole thing down.....hehe =)

Anyways, shall go back to studying now :) I finish exams on Thursday (yay!) so (maybe) watch out for even yummier things here in the near future!!

Thai Chicken Pizza
Adapted from allrecipes

1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil

3 1/2 tablespoons peanut butter
3 tablespoons rice vinegar (I'd probably decrease to 1-2 tablesoons as I found it too sour for my tastes)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons chili oil
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
2 teaspoons honey

1 boneless chicken breast half, cooked and sliced into thin strips
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
1 tablespoon paprika
1 small fresh red chile pepper, finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
4 green onions, sliced
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese
1 carrot, peeled and grated
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1.Pour warm water into a small bowl; stir in honey until dissolved. Add the yeast, stirring until dissolved. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2.In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt. Add yeast mixture and olive oil; stir well to combine. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in more flour until the dough is no longer sticky. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
3.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
4.Punch down the risen dough on a floured surface. Divide into two equal portions. Allow the dough to relax for a minute, then roll each portion out into a thin circle. Place on lightly oiled pizza pans.
5.To make the peanut sauce, place peanut butter, rice vinegar, and soy sauce in a blender. Add chili oil, ginger, and honey; process until smooth.
6.In a medium bowl, combine the chicken, sesame seeds, paprika, chile peppers, salt, and 3 tablespoons of the peanut sauce. Mix until the chicken is evenly coated. Spread the remaining peanut sauce evenly over pizza dough. Top with chicken, green onions, and cheese.
7.Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until cheese is lightly browned. Garnish with carrots and cilantro.

Study+study+study = going crazy

2010-10-15T18:20:00.010+11:00

First HSC exam today! *gasp*

Okayokay- so maybe it's not such a big deal =) I didn't start studying last night (for once) and so I got some sleep. Although my mum accidently turned on my electric blanket (on high might I add) in the morning when she was changing my sheets, meaning that I spent half the night being fried on my bed instead of sleeping! Don't worry, I turned around occasionally to make sure that I seared evenly =)

But even spending half the night awake, I didn't think any exam thoughts. It was strangely.....normal. No 'what if' thoughts, no 'I'm going to fail' or even trying to go through my essay at all. I think I'm skilfully mastering the art of blocking out bad thoughts from my head!

I can happily forget my no-so-pleasing marks that I might have gotten a few weeks ago. I can easily forget that there's a HSC to study for- until I return to my desk and see a pile of books waiting to be studied. In fact, the only thing I really think about now is what I'm going to do after the exams- all the food I'm going to cook, all the places I'm going to eat at, all the blogging I'll do.

I don't want to talk much about school because this blog is mostly for happy things. Study makes me sad sad sad........=( (*gasp* repetition! sibiliance! *puke*) But because I'll have to go back to studying soon (and start on my essays *sigh*), I'll keep this one short. But if you don't see me around on this blog for a couple of weeks you'll know why =) But knowing me, I won't be able to resist not blogging!

And because studying is messing up my brain, I'll go a little crazy in this post and blog about three things rather than one. Okayokay, enough about the study- onto the happier things- food!

Soda Cream Crackers from agesssssss ago

These soda cream crackers were like an impulse-bake. I saw them on Wendy's blog one moment (recipe here)and before i knew it, I had a batch in the oven =) I made then into small shapes like I saw in the original recipe because I thought they were cute, although this made it really time consuming- especially with all the fork marks! I used thickened cream instead of whipping cream because it was what I had in the fridge, so the dough ended up a lot tougher (I was scared to add too much milk- don't know why- it's silly, I know) and the layers didn't come out nearly as defined as Wendy's. Nevermind. I'll just have to bake these again. After the HSC.

And then there were these donut muffins.

I've got plans to make proper donuts sometime in the future but meanwhile, I thought I'd try these donut muffins to satisfy my (sister's) donut cravings. They're a lot easier to make than donuts- just mix all the ingredients together and bake!! The method looked rather much like the method of making normal muffins so I wasn't quite sure how these would turn out....

Sure enough, they turned out having the texture of a donut (a cakey one), but wasn't nearly as light and soft as fresh donuts. They were pretty yummy and donuty fresh out of the oven but hardened considerably the next day and became a little chewy too. I tried the sugar and cinnamon coating but it either fell off the muffins or melted onto them so I coated them in oil (instead of melted butter) and then dunked them in the cinnamon sugar muxture but that made them all oily so I used ganache for the rest of them. Chocolate seems to be able to fix everything =) I'll post the recipe later although it's probably not worth it....

For something a little more successful. And very very delicious =)

I've always wanted to make these coconut tarts- the types you get at Asian bakeries. They taste great both hot and cold, but they're terribly hard to resist when they've come straight out of the oven-sorta like chinese egg tarts (not in the taste though)! Only these are a lot easier as there's no puff pastry involved, and they're a lot more forgiving- if you accidently leave them in the oven for too long. And because they're coconutty, they're bound to be a hit within our family!

I baked these in my electric oven since they were so small. I no longer like my electric oven. It doesn't bake things evenly =(

Coconut Tart
Recipe from Angie's Recipes- thankyou Angie!

Pastry:
180 g All-purpose flour
35 g Icing sugar
1 small Egg
10 g Custard powder
90 g Butter, chilled

Filling:
100 g Grated coconut
40 g Butter, melted
40-45 g Sugar
1 large Egg
2 tbsp Condensed milk
2 tbsp Water

1. Sift flour, icing sugar and custard powder together into a mixing bowl.

2. Rub in butter, using paddle of mixer or by hand, until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add in egg. Mix until the pastry begins to form large lumps. Press together gently with your fingers to form the pastry into a ball.

3. Chill pastry dough for about 30 minutes. In a bowl, mix all ingredients for the filling. Set aside.

4. Divide pastry into 10 portions (approx. 35 g each). Press pastry evenly into tart mould. Trim the edges to remove excessive dough. Prick base of each tart with a fork. Fill tarts with filling to about 90% full.

5. Bake in a preheated oven at 180C/355F - 200C/330F for 30-35 minutes until pastry is cooked thoroughly. Leave the tarts in moulds for 5 minutes before turning onto wire rack to cool.

P.S Does my blog take ages to load?? Because it does on my computer- I'm not sure if it's just me =(
EDIT: Problem fixed....I think =)

Banana Crumble muffins

2010-10-07T21:08:00.002+11:00

Our kitchen runs in a simple way- my mother is in charge of the cooking, which she does, infallibly every single day. Then there's me with my sweet and baked goods, which I make whenever I feel like it. My father's in charge of the drinks whenever we have a more Western style dinner- say roast or steak. And my sister's the kitchen assitant, helping out here and there, or recreating recipes from school or other little things she might like to try.

And then there are the few dishes each one of us creates which don't fall into our normal category- sort of like signature dishes, although not quite because they're not that good. But these are dishes which other members of the family will rarely attempt.

For me, these special things would be mostly my occasional dinners (like butter chicken or beef rendang) and my yorkshire puddings which I make everytime we have roast (which unfortunately, have never lasted long enough for a photo). My sister's would be her fruit punch, a recipe from one of our first cookbooks. My father's would be his HK style borscht or a couple of dishes he whips up whenever mum's not at home. None of these are particularly special, and could easily be replicated by other members of the family but just never are.

One of my mum's special little somethings is bannana bread, which, funnily enough, comes from my cookbook. She claimed banana bread as her role one afternoon, while I was at school when she made the banana bread from a recipe we'd been looking at.....together! It was an instant hit, and she's been making it regularly ever since.

Although this doesn't mean I'll never make banana bread, this is the reason why most banana bread recipes, as good as they may look and sound, rarely make it to the top of my list of things to bake. And because that list is so long, I've never really gotten around to making banana bread =)

But, when I saw these gorgeous banana crumble muffins here, with their delicious looking crunchy crumble topping, along with the soft fluffy insides I just couldn't help but make them =D And this was before I read on to realise that more than 5,500 other people had tried and loved the recipe too!

So this was how I made my first batch of banana muffins- and they tasted every bit as good as they looked on the computer screen!! I didn't bother measuring the crumble ingredients properly or mixing them properly because by the time I'd spooned the mixture into the muffin pans, the oven had already been on for ages. Which is why the topping didn't quite come out as I'd expected. But most cakes which come out of my oven have really crunchy tops anyway, so along with the crumble topping the top was really really yummy and crunchy =D

The muffin itself was also delicious, a lot lighter than banana bread but just as good! My parents actually prefer the banana bread over this, but I really love the crunch of the crumble topping- it makes a huge difference to the slightly more ordinary muffin =) Unfortunately the crunch didn't last long, and when I took it out of the box the following day, the top had gone soft =( Popping them back into the oven helped a bit, but it wasn't quite the same as on the first day- I guess I'll just have to gobble them all down on the day I make them!

Which isn't a difficult thing. At all =)

Banana Crumble Muffins
From Allrecipes via The Little Teochew

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup butter, melted

1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

1.Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
2.In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
3.In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4.Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Zen Oasis

2010-10-04T14:08:00.004+11:00

This has got to be one of the most unusual buffet restaurants I’ve been to.

For one thing, it’s situated one and a half hours away from Sydney, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Literally. All you can see around here is lots of plain, empty land. The endless flat ground, with dry yellow grass (because we’re in Australia, of course), a couple of lonely, skinny trees here and there and an occasional cow or two- just like the type you see for hours on a long drive along a highway. And to make it a little bit stranger, all the diners here don’t actually come from this area- they all come from suburban Sydney. And then there’s the name of this restaurant, Zen Oasis, which (to me) sounds nothing like a restaurant name really- perhaps a resort of some sort, but not a restaurant.

We arrive by car, slowly along the windy gravel road until we reach the end, to find plenty of other cars already parked there. Never mind that our GPS seems a little lost, with our car sitting in a middle of a big green patch on the screen, with no roads to be seen- at least we’re in the right place! The sight of the large pond draws our attention- perhaps this is the reason for the 'oasis' part of the name? Sitting next to the pond is what appears to be a small wooden cottage- it doesn't take long to figure that the cottage is the restaurant.

We’re here from the recommendation given by family friends. Apparently, this place has been open for a while and is quite well known within the Cantonese-Chinese community (the same bunch you'll see flocking Eastwood every weekend for their grocery shopping). It’s very popular too- the restaurant opens at 11:30 and we’ve only arrived a couple of minutes later but have already found the restaurant mostly full, with customers already comfortably seated and digging into their food. We are shown to our table, in a small dark corner by a waiter who notifies us of their food wastage policy before we are let loose to grab some of the food we’ve been eagerly awaiting to try.

So- what’s so great about the food that makes people travel so far just to eat it??

To me, it’s not just that the food tastes good; it’s the fact that the food is ingenious. Zen Oasis is a vegetarian restaurant, but instead of serving up plates of veggies and tofu, it serves up seemingly ordinary dishes with vegetarian foods disguised as meat. And you don’t really notice it! The meats are not only replicated in appearance and taste, they are also replicated in texture- even with fake fat within the ‘meat’!

Fried Banana, (and I don't know what the rest are meant to be.....)

Of course, we start with the unhealthy fried foods, which have their own table, separate from the mains. Unlike your typical RSL buffets, there were no fried chips or potato wedges to be found, but instead a more unusual selection of delicious crunchy foods.

I don't usually like fried banana, but I make the exception to try it this time, because the black sesame seeds make it look different and yummier. And it is! It doesn't taste quite as banana-y as most fried bananas I've had (which is a good thing) and the batter is deliciously crispy and crunchy. Made with a similar batter, the round fried ball thing reminds me of fish balls, with its nori wrapping making it extremely tasty.

Spring Roll and 'wu cee'

And of course, the beloved spring roll, which is filled with a slightly sweet veggie filling and is delicious with its crispy exterior

Fried 'Salmon'

Wrapped in a layer of nori, giving it a slight fishy taste, and then fried in a crispy batter, this fried salmon is one of my favourite fried foods. Biting into the crispy batter reveals the tender pink interior which tastes amazingly like salmon- and it even tears off in the exact same way cooked salmon does!

Fried (yellow) 'eel'

Again, nori is used to give this a little fishy flavour. The thin strips of 'eel' are fried until very crisp and crunchy and then covered in a slight sweet sauce. And if you've never had deep fried eel before, just take a look at these pictures to see the resemblance!

Selection of fried foods

With so many crispy and crunchy foods on offer, I could happily stuff myself with just the fried foods =)

Rice Dumplings (Zhongzi)

These cute little dumplings are so small, I could eat them in one mouthful! They must have taken forever to wrap....

The rice dumplings are made of glutinous rice and instead of the meat filling, mushrooms and beans along with other ingredients which I'm not quite sure what they're supposed to replicate. But they're incredibly flavoursome and are so good, we each eat a couple of these. Luckily they have heaps of these, kept warm in layers of bamboo steamers- they really must have taken forever to wrap!

Fried rice

Surprisingly, our favourite of all is the simplest one- fried rice. Unlike your usual chinese style fried rice with colourful veggies and egg, this fried rice is fried with shredded pieces of nori and other veggies. It tastes suprisingly tasty despite its simplicity compared to other dishes, but is so good that we keep going back for more!

Steamed Wonton

A smooth, silky wonton wrapper envelops delicious fake prawn failling- even from the outside, you can see the pinkish interior which looks decievingly like a prawn filling!

Vegetarian Char Siew (chinese barbecued pork)

I love how realistic the char siew looks- the shape is exactly like the real one! But even more incredible is that it tastes amazingly real, perhaps with a lesser pork taste than the usual but still has a incredibly meat-like texture. It's slightly soft, like the real good quality char siew that you may occasionally get- the type with just the right amount of fat. Of course, there's no real pork or pork fat in this, so we can happily wolf down a lot of these without the guilt =) Covered with a delicious char siew sauce, this is definitely one of the best char siew I've ever had, real or fake!

Steamed Chinese Dumpling

I'm not quite sure which dumpling this is exactly trying to replicate (maybe it's not really trying to replicate anything at all?) because the filling is difficult to recognise but the delicious, soft transparent dumpling wrapper tastes just like yum cha dumplings. Personally I think the skin was not as soft as I'd like it, but it was delicious all the same =)

Sushi

The sushi is really pretty- it's not only colourful but is made into many wonderful shapes and patterns. The sushi is made fresh, behind the table of food so that we are able to witness it being made whilst we get our food. And despite being vegetarian and full of veggies, it tastes every bit as good as it looks!

Fruit Jelly and Mochi (glutinous rice balls)

Vegetarian desserts are not the most difficult things to make (who puts meat in desserts??)so the restaurant goes little further here, to make most of the desserts vegan.

The cute little jelly is looks simple but is surprisingly delicious and addictive with pieces of fruit studded throughout the smooth, sweet, tropical jelly.

The mochi is another addictive dessert- a soft, chewy glutinous rice ball, covered in specks of coconut witha delicious mung bean (I think) filling. Seriously addictive =)

Blueberry Cheesecake, Sponge Cake and something (haha...I forgot what it was =S)

The blueberry cheesecake is a little firmer than what I normally like, but tastes delicious. The spongecake is also a little dry, but with its delicious custard filling and light coconut topping, tastes so light and yummy that we don't really mind.

Red Bean Dessert

Chocolate Mud Cake

The rich and dense chocolate cake is tastes heavenly, especially with its rich ganache icing. Perhaps not so popular with the adults who complain it's too rich and sweet but the slice is small anyway!

Mini Coconut Tarts and mini lemon meringue pie

The mini coconut tarts are really cute and taste delicious, although I prefer coconut tarts served warm rather than cold. But other than that they are an addictive treat- not too oily or sweet! I was surprised when my parents also decided to eat the lemon meringue pie because they don't usually like meringue. But it's so cute, it's hard to resist!

Looking back, I probably should have taken more photos because there was a lot more food I didn't take photos of- but there's always next time! Outside, there's a small path surrounding the pond- it's short and only takes one minute or so to complete the whole circle but does give a good opportunity for photo taking, and, more importantly, for a little exercise to help digest the food. Before the long 1.5 hour drive home. =)

Zen Oasis Vegetarian Restaurant
Lot 2 Medway Road Berrima NSW 2577
(Berrima & Moss Vale Exit of Hume Highway)
Tel: 0404 099 285 OR 02 4877 1285

Open 11:30-1:40 Sat and Sun
$31 for adults and $16 for children