Quinn's Baking Diary

Mango Pudding, the n-th version

2011-01-12T13:36:00.000+10:30

I know I am a freak. A freak for everything wobbly and sturdy. I love mango pudding with a passion. I love it so much I could not describe to you how much but to need to have you to see it for yourself say here, here, here and maybe here too.

I made this along with the Christmas Stained Glass Jello and the Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever for the Christmas Eve party too! I know, a lot of jello and pudding but they are yummy and melts in the mouth. I love them!

This is adapted from WorldFoodieGuide (made with Method B, the so-called relatively more complicated method). It tasted great and texture wise, wobbly enough for my liking but properly set. It uses raw egg and instant mango jelly powder in place of gelatine and is very similar to my previous cheat's mango pudding. With a recipe provided from someone from Hong Kong, I had a hard time resisting trying it. Not sure about elsewhere, but here in Australia, when we say Yum Cha (directly translated from Cantonese to English as 'Drink Tea'), we really meant going to a Dim Sum place (usually owned by someone from Hong Kong) and have dim sum and mango pudding is always a must order item.

It was great but the only downside is it is too sweet for my liking. I am guessing it is the sugar content in the instant mango jelly powder that varied it. I have to macerate mango cubes with lime juice and top it off to balance the sweetness. It is finished but would have been amazing if it is less sweet.

Mango Pudding
(adapted and lightly modifiedfrom WorldFoodieGuide)

A box of mango flavoured jello(90g per pack) (I've used Aeroplane Jelly Brand)
160g sweetened condensed milk (I would use 120g next time to begin with and taste along)
1 large ripe *mango, diced smallish
1 cup boiling water
3/4 cup fresh milk
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup crushed ice (cold water is fine)

Dissolve the pack of jelly powder with the 1 cup of boiling water. Add in the crushed ice and stir to dissolve and set aside to cool completely.

Add the sweetened condensed milk and the fresh milk to the cooled jelly mixture and combine well. Then add the beaten egg and *mango cubes.

Stir everything to combine thoroughly and pour it into little cups. Chill it overnight for best result or for at least a couple of hours. Serve chilled.

* You can puree half the mango cubes and add it into the jelly along with the milks or just add them into the jelly mixture as it is. I used the mango cubes to top the jelly instead.

Yum! Make some now!

Durian-Chocolate Tiramisu with Champagne Glazed Cherries

2011-01-07T13:27:00.001+10:30

Made this for a friend's birthday cake. When I first started making it, I've been made known she loves blackforest cake and durian. I wanted to make this easy black forest cake using readymade savoiardi/ladyfinger biscuits that you would use for Tiramisu.

Then I recalled I've made a Durian Tiramisu a while ago. I did not feel like using storebought Savoiardi and did not want to make any myself too. I ended up making a chocolate sponge cake and layer them with Durian-Mascarpone cream. I have also reduced champagne and coat the cherries in it for the decoration on top. The cake really is a combination of Durian Tiramisu and Black Forest Cake.

For the champagne glazed cherries, I got the idea from Donna Hay's 50th Issue Magazine and tweaked it to my liking. You really only need champagne and sugar and that is about it...

Alcohol and durian do not mix, I am not sure if that is a myth or fact up till now but there really isn't enough champagne to make anything dangerous....The cake is at its best when left overnight as the durian flavour became more pronounced but you might want to top it off with the glazed cherries upon serving because the cherries tasted like durian and champagne after being left overnight in the fridge...I am bias and love my durian fruit. I cannot tell you how awesome this cake was!

The chocolate walls took a while to put together, the weather was not at its best. I spreaded it out thinly but it refuse to set after 30minutes. I have to pop it in the fridge and take it out and pop it back in again....But it was well worth the effort....

Durian & Chocolate Tiramisu with Champagne Glazed Cherries

For the chocolate sponge cake:
(adapted and modified from Florence's @ Do What I like)

4 egg yolks
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cherry liquor (I use the reduced champagne liquid used to glaze the cherries)
3 tbsp castor sugar

2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/3 cup canola oil

1/2 cup tepid water

125g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

4 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar (I use lemon juice)
1/4 cup castor sugar

Preheat the oven to 175°c and line the base of an 8'' round tin with baking paper, trimmed to fit. Do not grease the pan. In a microwave safe bowl, measure out the canola oil and pour over the cocoa powder. Set it aside to let the cocoa powder dissolve a bit.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk the yolks, salt, cherry liquor and castor sugar until pale and increased in volume. Microwave the oil-cocoa mixture until warm to touch and whisk it well to completely dissolve any cocoa lumps. Whisk the warmed cocoa oil into the yolk mixture and whisk to combine really well.

Stir in the warm water and whisk to combine lightly. Sift over the plain flour, baking soda and baking powder into the mixture and whisk everything into one homogeneous mixture.

Wipe a clean large bowl with lemon juice-dampened paper towel and pour in the egg whites. Whisk the egg whites with electric mixer (preferably hand held) until foamy and add in the lemon juice and continue whisking until it is completely white and increased in volume. Add in the sugar, a tablespoon at a time and stop whisking the very moment your bowl can be turned upside down with the egg whites defying gravity.

Take 1/3 of the egg white batter and whisk it into the yolk mixture to lighten it up. Slowly incorporate the remaining egg whites in two batches and completely incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake it for 45 minutes or until cooked. Test with a skewer at 30minutes and if it comes out clean, the cake is done.

When it is out of the oven, immediately turn it upside down and cool it completely before slicing it into 2 or 3 layers.

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For the durian mascarpone mousse:
(adapted from Yochana @ Yochana's Cake Delight)

250g of Mascarpone cheese
500 gm. Durian flesh
1 cup whipping cream
1 tbsp gelatine powder
2 tbsp cold water

Blend the durian with some of the cream to a fine puree. Sprinkle the gelatine powder over the 2 tbsp cold water and let it stand for 5minutes.

Warm the durian puree in a nonstick pan over medium low heat. Turn off the heat and add in the gelatine paste. Whisk well to combine and completely dissolve the gelatine into the mixture.

Add in the mascarpone cheese and whisk well to blend. Cool the mixture completely. Whip the remaining cream till stiff peak and fold it through the durian-mascarpone mixture. Chill it until needed.

You will have some leftovers enough to fill a swiss roll nicely. Else, multiply the recipe with 0.75.

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For the Champagne-Glazed Cherries:
(adapted and modified from Donna Hay's 50th Issue Magazine)

200ml bottle Champagne
2 tbsp (20ml per tbsp) castor sugar
1 cup (200g) fresh dark cherries

Place the Champagne and sugar in a small pot and bring it to a boil, dissolving the sugar. Continue reducing it over medium-high heat for 8 to 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and add the cherries in and coat it well. Let it cool completely and it will glaze itself nicely.

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For the Chocolate Walls:
(adapted and modified from Unibic Website)

2o0 grams dark cooking chocolate, melted over bain-marie.
Glad Bake

Simply pour melted chocolate onto a large piece of Glad Bake and spread it out evenly and thinly with an offset spatula. Let the chocolate dry until when you touch it with your finger, it would leave fingerprint on them but does not stick on your finger. Run a pizza roller and slice the chocolate into irregular rectangular pieces.

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For the assemblage:
(adapted and modified from Unibic Website)

In the same baking tin used to bake the chocolate cake, place a layer of the cake in the tin and pour over 1.5 cups of the durian mousse. Cover with a second layer of cake and pour over another 1.5 cups of durian mousse.

Place the cake in the fridge to chill until the gelatine sets. To unmould, run a thin plastic knife around the circumference of the tin and unlatch the spingform tin. Transfer it to a serving plate or cake board.

Working quickly with cool fingertips, dab a little of the durian cream on the chocolate pieces, one at a time, and slap it on circumference of the cake to form the chocolate walls. Break up the rest into shards and set aside. Chill it again from time to time if necessary.

Arrange the glazed cherries around the edges and scatter the chocolate shards at the centre of the cake. Top with more Cadbury Flakes (I did this because I wanted a mixture of dark and milk chocolate. The dark chocolate was so bitter and my durian mousse has no sugar added to it at all).

Chill until ready to serve. Slice with a hot, dry knife and wash and wipe dry with every cut to get neat slices else the chocolate walls will be teared down easily.

Enjoy!

The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever

2011-01-02T20:15:00.002+10:30

Apart from the Christmas Stained Glass Jello, I've also made some cakes for the Christmas Eve party. I've made the best ever chocolate sheet cake, made famous by none other than The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. It lived up to its name so well and indeed was the best chocolate cake. Ever!

Because it was baked in a sheet pan (or what some would known as jelly roll pan), it did not take long to bake at all. The cake was ultra moist and we better not discuss the amount of butter that were sacrificed in the midst of making the cake. The cake itself, it's awesome! The frosting itself, it's awesome! When you pierce the cake all over like mad and pour the frosting over and let it seep through. It's even better! Then I realise I forgot the nuts, bummer! I sprinkle the toasted chopped nuts over and have a bite. And a long silence await. If Heaven really do exist, it is right here. Will you all please spell it together with me while taking a virtual bite. H-E-A-V-E-N!

I have also decided to add a couple of coins (washed and wrapped tightly in foil) in the cake, just like how they would in a Christmas Pudding Cake for a bit of fun and luck. It was very well received. Ree's recipes have not failed me so far...

Having said all that, this is my second entry for the Christmas Giveaway hosted by Swee San of The Sweet Spot and I urge you, and everyone who is reading this right now to click HERE. If I ever would spam you, it would be for all good causes, living to be a chocoholic and to eat dessert. I am now officially known to my neighbours and friends as 'That girl who made the freaking awesome chocolate cake!'

Christmas Stained Glass Jello

2011-01-01T10:26:00.005+10:30

It has been a looooooog time and I'm afraid just too little, too late. Still, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone...I hope the best for all of you and may you all have a happy, successful and wonderous new year. May 2011 be another awesome year for everyone.

I am officially in Perth now, packed and left Adelaide and came here to be with Aaron. It's been 3 weeks and I am settling down pretty well. Planted my first pot of Italian parsley, cooked up a storm, made so much awesome food, attended so many parties and events and thoroughly enjoyed myself, got myself a new DSLR camera, got a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker as a farewell gift from my previous employer (you do not have to even begin telling me how lucky I am, I know!) completely unpacked everything and manage to stash it away in my tiny tiny place. This room is one-third the size of my previous room. I had a lot of trouble getting used to, seriously....

As if settling in is not enough, I decided to work casual while finding a permanent employment and started throwing in resumes into restaurants. I officially started working in an Italian restaurant on the 4th day of being in the midst of settling in Perth. There has been a lot of juggling, multi-tasking and adapting. It was sad to leave everything I have ever had in Adelaide and nicely established over two years to come to Perth, but when I wake up to sunny days with warm breakfast for us and a jolly face to look at every now and then, I know everything would be worthwhile...

Aaron is a lot busier now, he has been to the rig twice in 2 weeks and will be going offshore tomorrow. Thank goodness I have tonnes of friends and people that care about me right in Perth, it does ease the loneliness when I want to be a party animal and get drunk and I could be at peace when I feel like it, staying in, cooking and snapping photos. I am still trying to find the best spot in the house with perfect lighting though. Life is more than just blogging, which explains the fact of me being in hiatus for a while, despite the busy-ness...However, I have been cooking and churning new stuffs constantly. Will share as I could find the time....

I am just very very thankful and glad everything is coming together nicely and I am slowly getting there.

Back to recipes....This is so easy but looked awesome I was procrastinating if I should post it. It is Stained Glass Jello and is themed Christmas because of the colour. It is adapted from justJENN and tasted as awesome as it looks.

Made these Stained Glass Jello for a Christmas Eve party. It was well received and there really isn't a story behind it. I really just love trying out new things. My heart would be easily warmed when I look at the smiley faces and joyful munch from my friends when I serve my food to them. Christmas itself to begin with is nothing big for me and my family back in Malaysia. Here, it is.

For me, Christmas is all about being merry and getting together. It gives everyone a reason to be at the same spot, celebrating, reuniting and thanking each other for things, though you really do not need a reason to come for the food. My Christmas, it is the people that I celebrated it with that have made it so special for me everytime. Together, we sat down, reflecting over things that have happened through the years, reminiscing good times and accepting down times.

And while that is happening, a little sweet treats would not hurt at all....

Christmas Stained Glass Jello
(adapted from justJENN)

A box of raspberry flavoured jello (90g per pack) (I've used Aeroplane Jelly Brand)
A box of lime flavoured jello (90g per pack) (I've used Aeroplane Jelly Brand)

3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
2.5 tsp gelatine powder (equivalent to one small standard sachet)
1 cup water

Dissolve the box of raspberry and lime jello, separately, into 1 cup of hot water. Pour it into individual containers and chill it for a couple of hours or overnight.

p/s: I'm pretty sure the direction on your jello box says to add 1 cup of hot water and dissolve everything, then add 1 cup of cold water to it. You know what, ignore it!

Once solid, cut them up individually (a plastic knife, slightly wetted works best here) into small cubes.

Carefully combine all the coloured cubes into a large container or like me, swap half colour into each other's container and gently mix them up a bit. Pop it back into the fridge while you make the condensed milk jello to gel everything together.

Gosh....look at how gorgeous they are even before they are finished. Awesome!

To make the condensed milk layer, measure out 2 tbsp of the water from the 1 cup water and place it in a shallow bowl. Sprinkle the 2.5 tsp gelatine powder over the 2 tbsp water and let it stand for 5minutes. Heat the remaining water until almost boiling and turn the heat off. Pour in the gelatine paste and whisk to dissolve completely. Pour in the 3/4 sweetened condensed milk and cool it completely.

Pour the completely cooled milk mixture evenly between the two containers (or pour everything into one large container if that's what you did) and chill it until completely set. Unmoulding would be easier if you've used plastic containers rather than a solid glassware of baking tins.

Slice and serve and be wow-ed!

It is as much fun making them and as much fun eating them! They taste great together and not overly sweet at all. And you could easily make some with more colours or make it accordingly depending on your party's theme!

Having said that, this is my entry for the Christmas Giveaway hosted by Swee San of The Sweet Spot. Swee San, if I may say, the books you are giving away is drop dead awesome, NOT pretty good. Jeez....I cannot wait to get hold of Nigella!

Also would like to thank you for introducing websites such as BookXcess and BookDepository to your readers. One of my Christmas gift from Aaron comes from there. A Day at El Bulli is a pretty amazing book!

Happy New Year again everyone!

Inspired Desserts...

2010-10-16T20:31:00.006+10:30

Have been very very busy. Been updating the Facebook a bit but not so much of the blog, I need to get my prioritization right. Now, life is getting back on track. Perth was a lot of fun, it was all about the food and like what I have mentioned in my Facebook status: Quinn came back from Perth a much happier girl, could not wait to move to Perth end of this year, had so much good food and good company in Perth, snapped a lot of random shots, met a cute bartender, checked out awesome-looking toilet and bought a couple of things she really liked...Life is so good!

That really basically sums it all up. I do not know which dessert I should start blogging about as I've made quite a few things when I was down with Shingles. I recovered completely but the backaches and body pain is not going away, I consulted the doctor and he said give it a month or two....I could not imagine myself feeling like an old lady with pain all over my body, it is not the best feeling ever but I will have to live with it...Anyway, I have decided to blog a variety of what I have made throughout Shingles period, they were inspired from various people...

To start off with, I've made Dark Chocolate Brownies, Ginger Ice Cream and Salted Butter Caramel Sauce. This is adapted from the infamous Helen who blogs at mytartelette.com

The caramel sauce was to die for....seriously. It is so good on almost everything. Having said that, the next post, you will probably be seing desserts with salted butter caramel again. I still have a small jar of it sitting in the fridge. It is beautiful on anything....Use it like how you would of Dulce de Leche basically. Lusciously thick and dark, after being cooked down for a while over the stove. The saltiness comes through obviously and I like it...A LOT!

The ginger ice cream that topped it off was great too...Very simple to make and come together in no time, a great change from the usual vanilla ice cream and I am loving it and have made it twice ever since then....

Next up, I've made Italian Plum Coffeecake with Sour-Cream-Cheese Topping. This is adapted from Bee Bee who blogs at Honey Bee Sweets. She is very much known to me as the Masters of Chiffon and Bread Loaves! I love how the plum complimented the butter cake and the topping is absolutely to die for. Nothing more than combining cream cheese, sour cream and sugar, how easy is that??? I served it with a dollop of Vanilla Mascarpone....

Or just a scoop of the ginger ice cream....So yummy, anything topped with mascarpone, softly whipped cream, ice cream or all of them are always divine....

Finally, I have also made a Peach Mousse & Strawberry Verrines to echo the colours of Spring and the upcoming Summer. This is again adapted from Helen@tartelette. The lime zest and lime juice used really pull all the flavours of peaches and strawberries together. It is not too firm but not wobbly, just perfect when you dig in with a spoon...The serving glass was smuggled from Osteria de Mesa, a Spanish-Italian place. The glasses were used to serve Sangria in them and are of 175ml capacity. I felt they were the perfect size to layer desserts in...

Before anyone hate me, I better clarify. I did not exactly smuggle. The restaurant is owned by my boss and I am one of his staff out of the 18 restaurants he owned across Adelaide. He happily gave them to me during one of out regular staff dinner when I asked, and yes, he looked at me weirdly and it made the situation very awkward, I have no choice...I was desperate, the power of blogging and shooting photographs!

If you think I am so smart to come up with all the combination, you must be crazy. I do not develop a whole lot of recipes but I must admit I am pretty good at replicating them...I scale down all the recipes by a lot since I really do not serve many as of now. Will not be posting the recipes but the links should all lead you to the original recipes. If you need a scaled down version, shoot me an email...

Alright...I guess this is it. Till next time then. Thank you for watching this space! See you in a bit....

A Taste of Yellow: Perfect Scrambled Eggs

2010-10-02T23:27:00.013+09:30

I am feeling very helpless now...It is an on and off relationship with Aaron and I will be flying to Perth this coming Friday to mend and fix things between us a bit, do not know if it is for the better or for worst. Aaron is second. Right now...I am feeling helpless and weak and sick and useless because I am diagnosed with Shingles....It is basically getting chicken pox the second time.

It is also Sue's birthday today and I did not make anything to celebrate the occasion though I am indeed miles away from her and the family. It started with a very high fever and the doctor did said any higher would probably have cause me some good damage on the brain, phew...Right now, I need to be isolated, all by myself in the vicinity of my room and bear the pain on the muscles and joints for 3- days and the later 3-4 days would be just drying the scabs off and hopefully leaving no pockmarks.

I am always pumped up, doing something, up and running about and to have me bed-ridden for days with pain all over my body and tremendous itch could be a real challenge....This is the second day and I am not feeling much better. I whimper and whine like a big baby when it comes to taking antibiotics and fever pills. Tonnes of ointments and calamine lotions to reduce the itch and to dry the blisters up and all that are really getting on my nerves...

Then I remember I heard of LiveSTRONG event and 'A Taste of Yellow' from Shirley's blog post and how it coincides with my sister's birthday....Global LiveSTRONG events are everywhere and are participated by millions, even in Adelaide, where a group of people would clad on yellow shirt and cycle all along the beach in conjunction with the day while I pathetically stayed at home.

This was my lunch and it somewhat helped....all the medications I am on need to be taken after meal and sorry Barb, I forgot the yellow heart (and that was part of the rule) but the event was stucked in my mind for a while and I've made this with lots of thoughts and heart, does that count? And another bonus, we both made something with out heart using egg as base...apart from the fact that mine is messily fluffy and yours are beautifully shaped into a heart-shaped yellow yolk...Considering a Shingles patient, making her own lunch and doing the photo shoot part as well all by herself is no easy feat, helpless and lethargic practically sum everything....

My Nonna was diagnosed with cancer but it was nothing serious, but still, a cancer is a cancer and has its risk. She underwent chemo once and was much better. It came back once again and she went for another round of chemo and that was about it. At her age, she is definitely very strong and to live till today and raised half a dozen of children all by herself, she is the heroin in all our hearts.

My oldest aunt, diagnosed with cancer too...Nonna's on the neck and Aunt's one's on the nose. She lost so much weight and massive hair loss were observed throughout the chemotherapy period, with occasional vomiting. It would break anyone's heart to see what she's been through...I believe everyone could be and need to be strong, at some stage in their life, when they are facing life-death situation. My Shingles, it is nothing compared to what cancer patients would have to go through or have been through, I should stop complaining and live with it.

This scrambled eggs recipe, is something I eat regularly...Nothing more than eggs, good butter, salt flakes and freshly grinded pepper on a good dry toast, topped with parsley flakes. The video is very much self-explanatory. Gordon has my respect, as annoying as he could be in some eyes, I love how original and real he is, when he talks. That is not arrogant, fairly confident and good in what he is doing. Once you have tried his scrambled eggs recipe, you will not whisk the eggs in a bowl before hand! I like how he said 'Done in the pan, overcooked on the toast' and love the ending naughty bits he was trying to say, he paused and then he quickly say 'the breakfast!'....

I know this is a food blog but look, I am 25 so gimme a break and lemme say naughty sometimes...And hopefully I will come back with more good news in the following post. I've been cooking a bit and making things in the tiny little kitchen, they are all up on Facebook and hopefully will be up soon. Right now, I really got to go, it took me 90minutes to write this, can you imagine???

Good night people...

Crepe Suzettes

2010-09-20T02:18:00.003+09:30

I know, it's been over a month since I wrote about food and life here...Thank you so much for the wonderful emails, some dropping by just to say hello and some are getting worried and all of you are just very concerned about me. I still could not believe how blogging has made the world a much smaller place and receiving emails from people I have not met asking how am I doing really touched me....Thank you, I am very grateful and felt so appreciated...

The fact is, I have been doing a lot of takeaways and busy with work and a lot more other stuffs, was in denial for a bit, almost going to depression and I was basically living through hell, thriving on nothing but milk and water and enough food to keep me alive.. Significant weight loss and mood swing started and a couple of good friends were there to give support and things were back on track, rather slowly though. Stepping back into the kitchen was something I courageously did a week back and I find it took my minds off so many things, unhappy and things I worry about....They say one should not worry about tomorrow for they have seen yesterday and am happy about today...

Went over to a good friend's place and cook for the family. Cooking with and for the family was a lot of fun but it was a dinner so no pictures but we did came up with some rather impressive dishes. The Entrée to begin with was a seared scallops served on cold watermelon disc and arugula leaves and finished off with a beautiful mint vinaigrette. The main was a homemade squid ink tagliatalle with garlic, prawns, lots of fresh parsley and basil and finished off in a dash of cream. Also made a beautifully layered Ratatouille for the sides flavoured with thyme and a real good homemade tomato base sauce. Blanching and deseeding tonnes of tomatoes could not be very fun but when doing it with many people, I wish time would stop and we could cherish each other's help. Helping each other in my opinion would be the most beautiful thing in the world.

I could not believe I just said I was involved in cooking all that. I was really just sous chef-ing... I did not exactly start cooking until 3 years back. Watching Nan cook and cooking yourself, it is very very different. But I do enjoy good food. Currently, Modern French and a twist of Modern Australian Cuisine would be my favourites...

Aaron is back from Dubai on Friday and is now in Perth. He received a notice from his company saying he will be based in Perth for 12 months. He sent a bouquet of Lilies when he was in Dubai but it could not make up for his absence at all... He bought me 'Eat, Pray, Love' and other practical stuffs such as Iranian Vanilla Beans and Saffron strands but that all could never be compared to him being physically here. The postcard he sent me, I could read it front to back and back to front again and could memorize it word for word but it makes me long for him even more....I do not like long distance relationship and the distance as of now is doing nothing but straining our relationship. More flights in and out of Adelaide-Perth and when reality sink in, it could be very horrible to even go to bed sometimes...

I am a very bubbly and cheerful person by nature, I love being close to people, a simple pat on the shoulder or a rub on the hand could be very comforting. As of now,Quinn would love a lot of free hugs, let it be virtual or not. Going to Perth in the beginning of next year is the plan as of now....Will try to cook more often and blog more often, that would perhaps be the best thing I could do as of now....

I do not want my life to be dependent solely on Aaron. It is really not like that, we are just very very close to each other, that is all. We like being clingy and snuggle up each other and cuddling and me talking away...I do realize when you depend your life on someone else, let it be anyone, not just your partner. When that someone leaves or walk out of your life, you will realize that someone just took away your life with them and you're essentially left with nothing. You feel life is not there anymore because someone took it away.

Right now, life is about work, catching up with friends, cooking a lot of things Aaron would not eat when he was here. He just doesn't do much cheeses (feta, goat's cheese and curd are all yuck!) and dairy products and prawns basically so I tend to cook within his boundaries of favourite food. Now that he is not here, I could cook and eat what I always wanted to, go for musical and operas and enjoy them. Had a couple of nights out doing fine-dining and dressing up to the occasion, that all made me alive again....Life is good....Being back in the kitchen, could not help but make something sweeter, the savoury could come later...

You all do know what is Crepe Suzette don't you? My folks and my family, we all come from a non-English speaking background however we were lucky enough to be given the opportunity to travel halfway across the globe. I first heard of it when I was in France...My parents do not speak much English and I was very young to even understand what was going on around me but I clearly remembered after dinner one night, a very handsome young man, he was the waiter . Anyway, he pushed a trolley cart out next to our table....Then he started arranging beautifully paper thin crepes in concentric circles in a pan, one of those anodized bronze pan with long handle, typical of French. He poured a piping hot sauce over it and in the empty pan, he poured a generous amount of Brandy and Grand Marnier and heat that up and deglaze the pan clean of sauce and pour that over the crepes too. Then he lit them on fire and voila....Flambé was the first term I learnt when I first started off baking......I was very very intrigued and curious....And when I pop them into my mouth, that sauce, it's gotta be made up of orange, both the zest and the juice and caramelised sugar all finished off with a slight hint of liquor....a very beautiful bright orange colour that attracted me so much I remembered the Crepe Suzettes experience up to this day, very vividly in fact!

Everything you see here are made from scratch, from the crepes to the Vanilla Bean Mascarpone quenelle. It is not whipping cream. Went for fine dining last week in an Argentinian Restaurant and they serve Vanilla Bean Mascarpone with a rum flambéd bananas and strawberries caramelized in Muscovado sugar. It was absolutely yum!

And yes, you hear me right, homemade Mascarpone...I just could not find the energy to have a recipe up for each and every single thing I have made as of now...Swee San, remember when we talked about homemade Mascarpone? Did you manage to try out what I taught you?

That is about it I guess...I hope this would calm many people a bit and stop the emails coming in. The inbox is still flooded as of now and I have been copy and pasting the same reply to everyone, sorry people...but it does not show how important or famous I am, it only goes to show how nice people around me are and I am one lucky girl. I also have been missing a lot of postings which I doubt I could catch up with anytime soon, food is something I could never be sick of....For those of you who have linked me back on my recipes and shout-out to me in your post (say Pei-Lin and Ellie) and a lot more, it does not mean I am not giving due credit just because you are not mentioned...Thank you so much, period

I do not have a fix recipe for Crepe Suzettes. It is not hard, google Crepe Suzettes Recipe and be ready to be spoilt with choices.

Good night.
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P/S: Updated as of 20 Sept 2010 , 10:34am

Some of you ask through email for the recipe for homemade Mascarpone Cheese. I will be posting it just below here since it is requested. One of my housemate is Italian-French. She taught me how to make my own Mascarpone. It is way more delicious from those we bought outside, albeit a little wet but very rich and delicious. You gotta drain it well though then it won't be wet. It is way way cheaper too to make them yourself especially for things that will not cost you much. Do not know what it is priced like elsewhere but here in Adelaide, it cost approximately AUD12 per 250g tub of good, organic luscious Mascarpone and at the rate of me digging my spoon into it and eat it just like that, I would not pay that kind of money for something that is made out of nothing but cream and lemon juice.

Homemade Mascarpone
(makes approximately 2 cups)

4 cups of real good quality whipping cream (not thickened stuff please!)

1/2 a lemon or approximately 2-3 tbsp FRESH lemon juice

Heat the cream in a stainless steel pan until it is hot. When you take a wooden spatula and drop a little on your wrist, it should be almost scalding OR you see lots of steam escaping from the surface of the cream. I do not have the exact temperature. Remove it from the heat and stir in the lemon juice. Whisk with the wooden spatula vigorously until it starts to curdles It will curdle and become thick and coat the back of your wooden spatula. You will know it is thick enough when it is like this. The line should stay and not drip down again. Then let it sit for 20-30 minutes, undisturbed until it is not so hot anymore.

Line a large fine sieve (we use a large tea strainer) with layers of clean and sterilized muslin cloth (we use store-bought ones). Drain it overnight just like that. When it is completely cooled, we cover the sieve with a large piece of cloth and place it in the fridge to drain overnight.

The next day, we remove the cheese. It will be unmoulded as one piece and is nicely lifted off the sieve. Stir with a wooden spatula until it is creamy and form a smooth mass again before using. You can use it for tiramisu and use it for savoury dishes too. With 4 cups of whipping cream, it would yield approximately 470-500g of Mascarpone cheese. And did I mention, it kept so well it in the fridge in an air tight container. Lasted for 2 weeks for me, no mold growth , no problem!

For the Vanilla Mascarpone shown here, I mixed in 2 tsp icing sugar with 1/2 a vanilla bean seeds, scraped from the pod and mix it with 1 cup of Mascarpone cheese. Mix it well and chill it in the fridge in an air-tight container until needed. The remaining Mascarpone was use to make a walnut Mascarpone sauce for a gnocchi dish.

Have fun making your own Mascarpone...

Cheers,
Quinn

Fruit Pastry Cake

2010-08-03T10:10:00.001+09:30

This cake, to everyone probably need no further introduction. It was flooding the blogosphere years ago and has now make a come back. Couldn't remember anymore when I first saw it but the last post that really triggered me to make this was HappyHomeBaking's Post.

The beautifully arranged fruits over the cake, so colourful, so vibrant and completed with a sift of icing sugar left the cake charming and beautiful tasting. Perhaps, there is something I need to clarify. It's me and Aaron....While he's away, I couldn't help but I've found another guy. He's Irish and we really like each other. Been seeing him for a while and we've both been going for evening walk every other day that I'm not working and he's always there for me. Please meet Finnigan....My landlord and I and my other housemates, we all live in this huge mansion and live happily together. I know it's usually not the case but yeah, we do live harmonically. Finnigan's the family dog, Irish-terrier breed. I'm not much of a dog person but Finn changed it. I think if Aaron is not travelling this frequently, when we get our own place, I would love to get a dog too.

Back to the cake, I have nothing but good words to say about the cake. It's beautiful and browns beautifully. I really gotta thank my anodized pan for the even heating that cooks the centre of the cake to perfection.

Look at how evenly it browned. See the picture below and notice the two even brown line running through the bottom of the cake. The sides and bottom of the cake has a tender crust that tasted great as well as the yellow cake itself. Not too thick but just great ratio really....

I made one recipe, took one big slice and slice the rest smallish and brought it to my workplace and everyone really love it. I didn't cut back on the sugar but my fruits were really tart. Only the peach slices are sweet. They are the leftover from my Peach Melba.

The batter of the cake was really yellowish. I think it's the egg, the yolk was bright orange, I've never seen such bright yolk in my entire life really! The batter was thick and luscious and I confess, I dipped my fingers in twice just to taste the batter and I lick my spatula and whisk clean. I didn't even use an electric mixer. A hand whisk was all I need.

My beautiful anodized metal pan, buttered and floured generously. I am always freaking out if the cake refuse to plonk out from the tin in one piece!

Did I also mention I didn't want the cake to have the slightest dome. I wanted a flat tall cake. The batter was thick enough to hold it's shape. A trick here: Pour the batter into the pan and even out the top lightly. Then, spin the baking tin and you'll notice the batter spreading out towards the edges due to centripetal force. The cake batter will concave towards the centre of the cake.

Kinda hard to explain, not sure if the picture above shows you what I'm trying to say. By doing this, when the cake rises at the centre first, it will rise and be even with the sides as well, resulting in a flat cake, rather than a domed cake. I hope I made myself clear.

Then comes the fun part, arranging fresh fruits on the cake. Do note that you gotta slice the peaches to even thickness else the cake will cover some of it when baking. I felt the cake looks way way better before going into the oven but it doesn't matter, the beautiful aroma and taste that filled the kitchen after that made up for it's look.

Bake and cool it in pan for a while and unmould it onto a serving plate. No pieces of the fruit dropped off during the unmoulding process, they cling well to the batter.

Give the whole cake a good dust of icing sugar. The peaches were dusted but the sugar naturally seeps into it resulting into a beautiful macerated peaches.

Make a big cut and slice yourself a generous amount of serving. And give away the rest so everyone is happy. It's been a while since I last bake for others so everyone was happily munching away on the cake. Words like tender crumbs, moist cake, not too sweet when eaten together and yummy, they all filled my mind the whole of the day. And that is enough to make my day, I can be very simple-minded sometimes!

Fruit Pastry Cake
(adapted from HappyHomeBaking)

Ingredients:

100g butter, cubed smallish and softened to room temperature
1 cup castor sugar
50g sour cream (replaced with buttermilk)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of seasalt
1 teaspoon lemon or orange zest (replaced with a squeeze of fresh lime juice)
3 large eggs, at room temperature
210g plain flour*
1 teaspoon baking powder*
500g fresh fruits (I use 4 gigantic strawberries, handful of blueberries and canned peach slices)

* Just realise I ran out of baking powder. I substituted plain flour and baking powder for the same amount of self-raising flour and a pinch of seasalt.

Generously butter and flour an 9'' round baking pan and preheat your oven to 180°C. Cream the butter by itself until pale and smooth. Add in the sugar and continue mixing with a hand whisk until sugar completely dissolves. Run a finger through the batter and rub it, it should't feel grainy. Add in the buttermilk, vanilla extract, salt and lime juice and continue beating and creaming it until combined, light and fluffy.

Crack in one egg and gradually beat into submission. If you crack in the eggs and whisk very well after each addition, your batter shouldn't curdle but it really doesn't matter if it curdled. Sieve over the self-raising flour and mix till smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth out the top with a spatula. Give the pan a few good spin so batter spreads outwards.

Prepare the fruits. Use kitchen paper or a clean tea towel to wipe the peach slices and make sure it is not too wet. We don't wanna introduce too much moisture into the cake batter. Hull the strawberries and slice them in half. Arrange the fruits on top of the cake, anyway you like but just do not press the fruits into the batter.

Bake the cake in the preheated oven at 180°C for an hour or more until a wooden skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre of the cake. Cover the top with a piece of aluminium foil (greased with butter!) in the last 15 mins of baking to prevent the top from getting too browned.

Cool the cake in pan for 10mins on a wire rack and then proceed to unmold and transfer the cake itself to the wire rack to let cool completely. Dust the cake with some icing sugar, slice and serve, just by itself or a dollop of cream and ice cream can kill no one.

Peach Melba

2010-07-31T16:56:00.003+09:30

I was very ecstatic when Ivy, a journalist with The Star Newspaper approached me for my opinion regarding an article they are planning to write on. It is for an article which comes with a theme and will be published every Monday in a cooking column of the paper. The coming up theme was set to be canned food and Ivy would love to hear what is my favourite canned food dish and why. Here's what I have to say:

My favourite canned food would have to be canned peaches. The celestial combination of peaches with both sweet and savoury dishes will have you yearning for more.From savoury dish such as Chicken Confit with Peach Purée to sweet things in life such as Peach tart, canned peaches definitely capture the essence of summer, albeit it being winter here Down Under!

The link is found here and below is a clip form the paper itself.

On top of that, I am also posting this easy and an all-time Aussie-French favourite recipe with canned peaches. This is Peach Melba and Wikipedia has a good write-up on the history of this dish. In a nutshell, a 118 years ago, a French Chef named Auguste Escoffier who works for the London's Savoy Hotel, created a dish known as the Peach Melba. He was very much inspired to do so after seeing the Australian soprano, Dame Nellie Melba, perform in Covent Garden. It is also fun to know that January 13 is National Peach Melba Day in the States.

The Peach Melba is nothing more than poached peaches served with good scoops of vanilla ice cream and a good raspberry coulis. The colour combination is so vibrant and yet the flavour comes through so well. Escoffier definitely executed this dessert well.

This is my version and instead of just poaching peaches, I've chosed to used canned peaches and infused it in a thyme-vanilla syrup. Not very original but this is how I like it. I added a touch of lemon juice because I felt the sudden acidic punch would bring out a burst of flavour from the tart raspberry and sweet golden peaches. I also made a French Vanilla Ice Cream to pair with it. You can use store-bought stuffs but I really just like making things from scratch. However, canned peaches is the only thing I always have in my pantry. Maybe I just don't like the idea of poaching and peeling stuffs. I hate peeling peaches and tomatoes, for some reasons. Yes, I know I have issues!

Anyway, feel free to tweek the recipe, you can add in a good splash of dessert wine such as Moscato or something stronger such as Cabernet Sauvignon and omit the water. For those with real sweet tooth, feel free to add more sugar but I've used the canned syrup to poach so it is sweet enough for me. Finally, a classic Peach Melba should be serve with dollops of ice cream in a glass, with peach slices or peach halves scattered on top and the whole lot dribbled with raspberry coulis but on this occasion, for better presentation and photo purpose, I've chosed to plate it the way I think it will look presentable. Feel free to play around, it is in no way affecting the taste, though I believe people always eat with their eyes first.

Peach Melba
(makes enough to serve 2 to 3 people as an after meal dessert)

One punnet of fresh raspberries (120g)
One canned peaches in syrup (450g)
1/2 vanilla bean (you could use 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste instead)
2 tbsp castor sugar
1/4 cup water or wine
1/2 cup of peach syrup from the can
1/2 a small lemon
1 small sprig of lemon, juiced
1 tbsp castor sugar
Softly whipped Cream, to serve (optional)
French Vanilla Bean Ice Cream, to serve

Place the water, peach syrup, lemon and its juice and the sprig of thyme in a small pot with a lid. Scrap the seeds from the vanilla pod with a tip of a small sharp knife and place the scraped seeds and the pod into the pot as well. Bring it to a gentle boil over medium heat. When boiling, let it cook for a minute or two and remove it from heat. Drain the peaches completely of its syrup and place it into the pot. Cover with the lid and let it infuse for 30mins or so, flipping it once in a while and giving the whole pot with lid on a good shake to coat the peaches with the flavoured syrup.

Drain the peaches and reserve the liquid. Use 2 tbsp of the reserved liquid and blitz with the punnet of raspberries using a food processor until fine puree form. Pass it through a strainer to obtain a smooth puree. The word Coulis means 'Strained Liquid' in French so do not skip this step!

To assemble, arrange the peaches in 2 or 3 serving glasses. Dribble each glass with a tablespoon of the reserved poaching syrup. Top off with a scoop of French vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of the raspberry coulis.

You can choose to fold the raspberry coulis with the cream lightly to create a ripple effect else just the coulis by itself will not be too tart too but I always try to incorporate as much dairy as possible in my diet, just cuz I like it.

Ivy, thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to be featured in my very own local newspaper in Malaysia. A large part of me feels very homely and another part of me feels amazing to be able to talk about food in such distinguished paper. Just so you all know, Ivy also blogs about food at www.hungryc.com

Matcha and White Chocolate Panna Cotta

2010-07-28T16:17:00.002+09:30

I first saw the Matcha Madness event from Ann's blog here. She made a gorgeous looking cheesecake.

I feel like I wanna be part of it simply to show my love for everything Matcha too. The flavour and aroma from Matcha powder is simply enough to have me dunk my finger in and lick it just like that.

I've developed this Matcha and White Chocolate Panna Cotta recipe, enough to serve one or two people. It is very rich as I've used purely dairy cream here. I like how the bitterness of the Matcha layer cuts through the sweetness of the white chocolate layer. The flavour of the white chocolate was dominantly present too and does not overpower the Matcha layer. I have also added a small amount of lavender buds and vanilla bean for flavouring. I love how they both leave a slight perfumed smell on my panna cotta, the flavour of the lavender comes through towards the end and is left lingering in your mouth for a while followed by the vanilla.

If you wanna try something wobbly for dessert, this made ahead panna cotta would do it for you to impress.

Matcha & White Chocolate Panna Cotta
(Makes enough to fill 1 or 2 Martini glasses, depending on size)

1/2 tsp gelatine powder
1 tbsp milk
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp castor sugar
1/4 vanilla bean, seeds scraped with a thin blade knife
1 tsp lavender buds, organic and food grade ones
1 tsp good quality Matcha powder
20g good quality white chocolate, chopped smallish

Sprinkle gelatine powder over the 1 tbsp milk and set aside to swell a bit. In a small milk pot, combine the heavy cream, castor sugar, lavender buds vanilla seeds and the pod. Bring it to a gentle simmer over low heat until you see small bubbles appearing from the sides. Remove it from the heat and whisk in the gelatine paste. Run your finger through the mixture and feel if there's any undissolved gelatine. If it's smooth, skip the straining process. Roughly divide the mixture into two equal parts. Add the 1 tsp Matcha powder to one part and the chopped white chocolate to another part. Layer into serving glasses and chill overnight or a good several hours. Dust with Matcha powder upon serving

Winter Comfort Food: Apple Crumble

2010-07-25T23:59:00.000+09:30

My life, it's been pretty interesting...I went over to see Aaron in Perth and spent 4 days there...He is not coming back to Adelaide end of this month. He is in Dubai now, and will be there for 2 months or so. I've came to knew about this a while back but just needed more time for myself...But, it's all good now....I flew to Perth on the 16th and came back to Adelaide on the 19th. As if that is not enough, I hop on the plane again on the 20th for my sister's graduation in Brisbane. It's a last minute decision but you only live once so do what the heart says. I hate procrastinating. My folks and my youngest sis came over too and it was a good surprise for my folks....shocked because they didn't expect to see me there but like I said, it's a good surprise... Love the family reunion! Just got back yesterday and am loving every single quiet moments alone here....

Also, before I forget, my manual generator picked Drew as the winner for the CSN Giveaway. Congratulations Drew and sorry to the rest. Like I said previously, I sincerely do hope I can pick all of you. Drew, we felt you're the one that needed it the most because you're giving and not just taking, to not only your child but many other children as well and the GC would be in good use by you. We've both had a friend's friend whom is an autistic as well and it really isn't easy to cope with. Good luck and thanks for participating!

It's getting colder now and I couldn't think of anything else that is more comforting than apple crumble. Apple crumble, my kind of comfort food....I had this for lunch and I cannot tell you how easy it is to make apple crumble. Seriously, anyone who can't bake or never make desserts before can make apple crumble. Bought a bag of apples for charity only to realise 20cents out of the 4 dollars bag will be donated to McGrath Foundation. I know apples are good for you but I can't bring myself to eat them. I don't like munching on them raw. I like cooked fruits. They taste better, so I couldn't help but make crumble, something so classical, so comforting and perfect in a bowl that fits perfectly in my hand and I dig in with a spoon, sit on my couch and watch Masterchef....That is the most comforting thing to me right now.... So here, I have used Pink Lady. Why use Granny Smith when you need to use more sugar to reduce the tartness?

My apples were really small, weighing 80g in average. So I've used two of them here. Feel free to use one large apple if you wish. Note, this makes enough to serve two for dessert. I only cook for myself and my only other housemate, that's why.

Peel the apples and remove the cores and diced them smallish. Toss in 1/2 tbsp castor sugar, 1 tbsp Sultanas and a pinch of cinnamon.

Toss them around and combine them really well. Place them into 2 small serving bowls or ramekins. I love these new ramekins bowls of mine, just 2 dollars each, it's microwave, dishwasher and oven safe. Go look in antique shops, you never know what special things you'll find in there.

I don't cook my apples or poached them before hand. I know some recipes ask you to do so but trust me on this one, you don't need to. Also, don't use those canned apples. Seriously, how much can apples cost and they just don't taste the same if you use canned apples. This is simplicity at its taste, you don't wanna skimp on ingredients.

Another bowl, 2 tbsp plain flour or wholemeal flour or even self-raising flour if that's what you have. It doesn't matter, see how forgiving it is??? Chop in say 20g of butter. I know....looks like a lot of butter for that amount of flour but wait and see...besides, too much butter can do no harm, it just makes everyone happier :)

Use fork, potato masher or fingers but don't use a food processor just for this tiny weeny amount. You'll wash more stuffs and what's the point? We wanna go all rustic and whatever that can be done by hand, we do it. It's therapeutic, remember? That's about how you crumble and you stop.

Now, you toss in 1.5 tbsp dark brown sugar, 2 tbsp rolled oats and 2 tbsp crumbled walnuts. Mix and toss them really well. Scatter them on top of the apples and don't press them, just scatter and cover the top completely.

That's about how it should look like. I love them, they smell great at this point already. Did I also mention, you need to crank up your oven to 180°C and let it heat up until you need it.

I am already loving how this look before baking, I dare not imagine after baking! Seriously, apple crumble is so versatile, you don't have to use walnuts and rolled oats if you don't want to. You can use nutmeg, dessicated coconuts or even almond meal, your choice. Just play around with flavours. Sometimes I do apple and berry crumble if I have that in hand. Bake the apple crumble for 15- 20mins until the toppings are golden brown....

There. Beautiful looking and they shrink a little bit after cooking. It's perfect because there's enough room for just a beautiful scoop of vanilla ice cream to sit on top.

And so you scoop a large dollop of vanilla ice cream on top of each crumble and you serve it warm.... The cold ice cream and the warm apple crumble when eaten together, is absolutely fantastic and absolutely divine.

The vanilla ice cream is adapted from Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros. Call me a Tessa Kiros freak if you like. The recipe uses whole egg instead of just egg yolks. So rich and creamy I would never wanna make any other ice cream. And very simple too....

A little bit of everything eaten every mouthful, isn't this your perfect comfort food? See the picture below.The apples when macerated with the sugar and cooked in the oven will draw out natural juices from the apples, so sweet and syrupy and you get the hint of cinnamon after that.

You really don't need to poach it. The apples now are just firm and holds its shape, not mushy but when you bite into it, it just breaks up nicely. Love Pink Lady apples, they don't have this powdery feeling to your mouth after being turned into mush. Some apples do.

Apple crumble, if the pictures here do not lure or prompt you to make some, I don't know what else could. And you might be really busy from now on because all they ask for dessert from now on will be nothing else but these apple crumble all the time, trust me!

p/s: Jess and Edith, I've picked up the awards meant for me. If you're reading this, a million thanks to you guys again for thinking I'm worth it!

Jess@Bakericious passed me the 'Stylish Blogger Award' and ' A Blog with Substance Award' to me.

Edith@PreciousMoments passed me the 'Sunshine Award'. Jess and Edith, I think I'll make this a leaf node in the tags spanning across the blogosphere. In a quick 5 mins Google, it looks like most bloggers that I have known and those that I have not already known have already been tagged, and I'm not going to spread the contagion outside the organization further :)

Good night....

CSN Store Giveaway

2010-07-15T20:00:00.003+09:30

If you've not heard of CSN stores by now, you're really living out of the sticks. So many bloggers alike have done many giveaways for so many 'lucky-you' out there and CSN finally approached me. I always thought this is nothing but merely another advertising stunt and I have told myself I wanna keep this page ad free. But when you have good things in life, why not share it? Besides, the ad is generating me some revenue enough to keep this page going. It's a win-win situation so I decided to not be so stuck-up and stubborn and benefit myself, benefit you all and benefit CSN.

You need a new dining room makeover, yes you do. I thought I don't need any until I browsed their page and I chance upon some of the more interesting items below that I'd like to share with you all....

How about a dining room set with table stand made of Birchwood that's made durable? I would so love my dining room to look like that, not cluttery, design kept simple and it's simply elegant. I know, you're probably thinking what if you wanna throw a party and there's so little chair???

Because if you ask me, I will say I will throw all parties outdoor. It's awesome, you get to soak your feet in the sun, underneath a shady patio umbrella like above. Isn't it wonderful? Life is amazingly good! And you don't have to worry about kids dirtying your precious carpet or that they don't have enough room to run around. An outdoor party would be the answer!

Apart from that, check out this awesome Kitchen Island Cart. You know, I might just do away with the rollers easily and have it stationed permanently in the kitchen. The surface would make a good kneading and rolling-out-pastry surface and I'll probably not put my precious Tessa Kiros there but rather all my baking tools. It's gonna be great and I never have to worry about forgetting something and have to go take it or so forth because everything is just within reach!

And when I have guests over for dinner, I would serve them food from my best China. Let it be one or two or more guests, CSN has everything you need for your perfect dining room.

You can also organise a Christmas in July Party here and wow your crowd with these Old Britain Pink Castle Christmas Set, adds to the festive and the colour!

Or pull out your best English Tea Set and make some scones to serve along your favourite Chai.

Like any of the above? I don't wanna make up your mind for you so I'm gonna be really practical and do a giveaway for an $80 voucher up for grab. Buy what you like and browse all you like and pick the favourite of the lot, though I assure you that is going to be a real tough challenge!

I don't do Facebook and I don't do Twitter and like every other blog, this giveaway is only open to USA and Canada readers only. Look, I am truly sorry about this but it's not up to me to decide and I figure I'd benefit some of my USA and Canada readers rather than not benefiting anyone. Hopefully more giveaways in future alright? Pinky promise...

All you need to do is to leave a comment here in this post. I'm gonna be away for a bit and so you have time from now till the Sunday, 25 July 2010, local Adelaide Time. I won't be picking by random, instead Aaron and I will go through the comments and pick out the one we think is the most deserving one. Just tell us why you really want this $80 voucher and what will you desperately buy with it! We'll announce the one-and-only lucky winner the following day!

I hope all of you win but like I said, there's only one voucher up for grab so all I can do is to wish you the best of luck. I'll see you when I'm back!

This giveaway is proudly sponsored to you by CSN Stores.

Coffee Creme Caramel

2010-07-11T10:32:00.000+09:30

This is adapted from Tessa Kiros's fourth book, Piri Piri Starfish. I've been using this book pretty frequently lately. A lot of cooking calls for Chorizo and I am loving the spicy sausage taste. While Aaron is away, I didn't cook enough to make a proper savoury meal for myself. But I did make a lot of desserts and this coffee creme caramel was made for breakfast. It has coffee, egg and milk in it. I was imagining myself eating scrambled egg on toast with a glass of milk and a dreamy bitter coffee. I think it fits the bill for breakfast and is very easy to pull together.

It doesn't make a lot and you can leave it in the fridge for up to a week. Just tip it out when you would like to have one and as you pass the fridge and couldn't resist the urge to dig in.

Coffee Creme Caramel
(makes enough to fill up 8 moulds of 100ml capacity each)

For the caramel:
1/2 cup (100g) castor sugar
1 tbsp Port or Whisky

For the custard: 450ml milk
1/4 cup (60ml) strong espresso coffee
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup (50g) castor (superfine) sugar
A few drops of vanilla extract

To make the caramel, tip the sugar into a heavy-based non-stick pan over medium heat and add a tablespoon of water. Heat it up, stirring, until the sugar starts to melt, then tilt the pan to swirl it around- don't stir anymore or the sugar will crystallise. Brush down the sides of the pan with a wet pastry brush to stop the sugar reforming on the side. Carry on heating and swirling a few times until all the sugar has melted and turned deep golden caramel brown. Stir in the port, watching out for it spitting. Pour into your moulds, swirling so the caramel covers the bottoms. Put the moulds into a large roasting tin and leave to cool while you make the filing. Preheat the oven to 160°C.

To make the custard, heat the milk in a saucepan just to boiling point, then whisk in the coffee and remove from the heat. Whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla together very lightly, just enough to incorporate the sugar but not enough to make it froth. Add a ladleful of the hot milk to the eggs, whipping to acclimatise them, then pour in all the hot milk and stir together. Pour into the moulds.

Pour boiling water into the roasting tin halfway up the sides of the moulds and lift into the oven.Bake for 40 minutes or until the custard is set.

Leave to cool then cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge. These are best eaten the next day, when the caramel has dissolved a bit and the custard has firmed up.To turn out, press down with your fingers in gentle dancing piano movements all around the edges of the custards to loosen them from the moulds. Shuffle or shake the mould quite roughly, hold a plate firmly over the top and flip it all over. If the custard refuses to plop out, dip the bottom of the mould in hot water for just a very few seconds. Serve with ever-so-lightly sweetened whipped cream or just plain.

Serve 6-8

Salted Butter Caramel, Vanilla and Chocolate Mousse

2010-07-07T16:23:00.009+09:30

I wanna start off by telling you all where I get these glasses. I was on Qantas Airway and I saw they use these glasses to serve wines to passengers. They're pretty good stuffs, we Australians hate drinking liquors from plastic cups. And they are so small , just over 1/3 cup capacity per glass. I didn't exactly smuggled them, I asked a very cute air-steward if I can bring these home with me because I collect props for my photography and these are money-can't-buy good stuff. He asked me how many do I want and I said two if possible and he said 'be-right-back' and walked off. And he graciously came back with two of these lovely glasses for me....And said they're complimentary from Qantas and they're even dishwasher safe. How awesome is that??? So if you like these glasses, the next time you fly, choose Qantas and you'll get them for absolutely nothing! I hop on the plane a lot, I hope you do too....I spent more hours in the plane then back in Malaysia this year...

These are adapted from Helen of Tartelette. They are like what the title says, mousses in three different flavours, layered together in a small glas, finished off with more Dutch Cocoa Powder and a pinch of salt. I've used Murray River Pink Salt Flakes. They're lovely, dissolved right in your mouth and blend so well with the caramel and the chocolate layer. I am so loving salt in my chocolates now! Not too much, just a pinch and I felt it brings out the flavour of both the caramel and the chocolates better.

I quarter her recipe and made enough to layer into two of these small glasses perfectly. Below is my version and what I've used, apart from the gelatine and sugar content, everything else is practically the same. But I like how they can be made into small portions so easily. One for lunch and one for dinner, these are my main meals for now. Sugar rush keeps me happy and keeps me full so it's gonna be like that for a while....

Salted Butter Caramel, Vanilla and Chocolate Mousse
(serves 1-2)

For the caramel:
2 tbsp castor sugar
1/2 tbsp water
1/8 teaspoon Murray River Pink Salt Flakes
1 tbsp thickened cream
1/2 teaspoons unsalted butter

Place the sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Continue to cook until caramel in color. Things happened very quickly here, if it is turning too brown, quickly remove from heat and shock over ice bath. When you see an amber colour of caramel, remove it from the heat and add the salt, heavy cream and butter. Stir with a wooden spoon until completely smooth and let it cool completely to room temperature.

For the chocolate:
30g dark semisweet chocolate (I use Lindt's 85% Cocoa Content)

Melt the chocolates in a microwave or use a Bain-Marie if you like but it's just 30g of chocolates. Cool it to room temperature. It should be flowy when needed.

For the vanilla mousse base:
1 large egg yolk
1 tbsp castor sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/8 tsp vanilla bean paste
1tsp gelatine powder, sprinkled over 2 tbsp cold water
1/4 cup thickened cream

In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolk and the castor sugar until very pale. Scald the milk in a milk pot and acclimatize it with the creamy yolk mixture, whisking vigorously while tempering. Pour the mixture back into the milk pot over medium low heat and cook until the cream coats the back of a spoon and thickened slightly. Constant stirring is required else you'll get scrambled eggs at the bottom of the pot. Turn off the heat and add the softened gelatin paste and whisk until it is completely dissolved into the cream. Cool that to room temperature before use.

While that is happening, whip the heavy cream with the vanilla bean paste to soft peaks and fold it into the cooled cream base. Divide the base into three equal portions. One portion that stays untouched will be your vanilla mousse layer.

To assemble, fold in one part of the base into the cooled caramel and mix until well combined. This is your salted butter caramel mousse layer. Pour that into your serving glasses and freeze for 5mins. Pour the plain base (your vanilla mousse) over the caramel mousse and freeze 5 mins again. Finally, mix the last part of the base with the melted but cooled, flowy chocolate and pour it into the glasses. This is your chocolate mousse layer. Chill overnight, covered with plastic wrap.

Upon serving, give it a light dusting if cocoa powder and a pinch of salt flakes and serve.

Assemble:
Add a couple of tablespoons of the base to the caramel to lighten it a bit and stir with a spoon. Gently fold the rest of the alloted mousse base into the caramel with a spatula.
Do the same for the chocolate portion.
Layer all three parts evenly into dishes or ramekins and refrigerate for an hour.

The last dessert: Oreo Truffles on Stick

2010-07-03T14:27:00.000+09:30

He is gone....Aaron is gone. This is the last dessert he ate made by me before he left. He's in Perth, and he will be there for a solid one month or more. But after that, his job will have him based in Adelaide so we're doing another six months contract with our landlord before we move out to a place where we could call home. But for now, I'd prefer a shared house like this.

When I bake to distress myself, I have people to share with me. In return, we sometimes cook together and share food. I love sharing, it makes me feel warm. I hate being alone....I never knew I'd be so reliant of Aaron. Apparently, as time goes by and all the nomading around, we have just a small handful of friends. It's horrible to not have your family with you at such stage of your life and now your partner is gone and you are left with little friends.

These are chocolate coated Oreo truffles. It's basically cream cheese and finely crushed Oreo biscuits blended together. I don't know how others can make theirs so dark but I use 125g cream cheese and 8 pieces of whole Oreo biscuits, including the cream. And yet they are just greyish like but that's all I have left. These are made from leftovers from my Dulce de Leche Cheesecake, both the Oreo biscuits and the cream cheese. You can choose to coat them in milk chocolate or white chocolate for a better contrast in colour. I did half half each and place remaining melted chocolates into a piping bag and just pipe random stripes on the dried 'Oreo Truffles on Stick'.

I hate myself for always having issues with Aaron when he was around. I felt we didn't appreciate each other enough. I shed tears when I sleep every night when I think about him being away from me. I hate how his room felt when I step in to tidy it, cold and quiet. I hate how I cannot share my cosy bed with anyone else. I hate how weak I am.

I'm taking over Aaron's part-time, doing a waitressing job in a restaurant 5 minutes away from my house. The pay is relatively good and I'm glad I'm bringing money in while waiting. Did I mention, to walk to work, you have to walk through this huge park and everything gets dark at 4pm because it's winter now. Every time I walk home from work, I run across the park. I'm terrified at the thoughts about how a handful of people tell me it's not safe to walk across the park at night and so forth....I run and run and run until I safely reach home. With my takeaway, a quick shower and eating dinner at 11:30pm....No, it doesn't feel good at all but I am happy Aaron started work already and is living very comfortably in Perth, he has plenty of friends there. I'd never have to worry and he'd never miss me when he has friends. I am very happy as long as he is happy.

It's always like that...when he has friends with him to hang out, he calls you thrice a day and then the call slowly dwindled to one and to none if you don't call him. I know we can never do a long distance relationship because of issues like that, don't talk about test of faith. Anyway, he's just too busy and occupied with work and has no time for anything else. He just gets home after work, dinner, shower and calls me and sleep. I feel for him....I know he is tired but I can't do anything to help him... I'm just having mixed feeling right now...I really don't know what I'm babbling. It's like you have just popped fries with ice cream into your mouth, it's a yum-yuck feeling.

Sorry, I disgress. Back to the Truffles-on-Stick, as usual, I dried it on my colander just like my previous cake pops because I don't have styrofoam boxes. They work well but turning them from time to time helps in drying quicker.

Couldn't resist eating them while taking the pictures. These are best served chilled.

Oreo-pops
(makes 12 pops)

125g cream cheese
8 pieces whole Oreo biscuits, pulsed with the cream until very very fine
White Chocolate
Milk chocolate

Mix the cream cheese and finely crushed Oreos until combined and form 12 parts. Chill them until they are easier to manage and roll them in between your palms to form perfect balls. Freeze them while you get along melting both chocolates in separate cups. I microwave my chocolates first in ramekins (each of 1/2 cup capacity) and place them directly in a pan filled with simmering water. Just make sure you don't get water in the chocolates else they'll sizzle. My ramekins were small but high so it makes the dipping a lot easier and you need to use less chocolates and less leftovers.

Four ingredients are all you need to make these Oreo-pops, so easy to make and looks fantastically gorgeous! Make some!

p/s: I just wanna let you guys know that this whole one-month-in-Perth thingy happened a while ago so please, please, do not feel like you are obliged to console me and leave comments of encouragement. I never felt like the whole world is upon me and everyone owes me a fair share in life. I felt out of place to say so because kindness is never a necessity but you know, just in case, some of you out there, feel so, please don't be. You're fine. By now, we are both fine and I am a lot more settled, emotion-wise and when I wake up to not have him around every morning, that is the reality check.

Sago Gula Melaka

2010-06-30T11:07:00.000+09:30

It's been ages since I last ate Sago Gula Melaka. Or Sago ~~Gula Melaka~~ Dulce de Leche to be exact. The last time I had it, it was in Changkat Bukit Bintang, it's called Nyonya Wok I think. For just sago, coconut milk and gula melaka (also known as palm sugar in English), we paid RM14 just for it and I kid you not, Sago Gula Melaka does not even require any skills in making them.

Don't believe me? Bring a large pot of water to boil and rinse as much sago as you like (I'd say 4 tbsp per person) under running tap water and drain them. When the water is boiling, pour in the sago and stir to prevent clumping. Cook them until they turn almost transparent. You need a large pot of water for small quantity of sago as the water gets really starchy later on.

While that is happening, crack open a can of coconut cream and lightly salt them and set aside. Chop up some Gula Melaka or spoon a few tablespoon of the thick and luscious Dulce de Leche, one or two knotted Pandan Leaves and a splash of water and bring it to boil over the stove. When it is all dissolved, pour them into a spouted jug and chill until very very cold and viscous. Do the same to the coconut milk as well.

Lightly whisk one egg white until foamy. When all the sago turn transparent, pour them into a large sieve and wash them under runny tap water until they are all separated from each other. Dribble in as much egg white just to bind and stir them in one direction until they are slightly gluey. Pour them into individual serving mould and chill in the fridge.

After dinner and when dishes are done, tip the sago pudding out on a plate and pass around gula melaka syrup and coconut milk so people can pour in as much or as little of each as they like.

And that's it. Miraculously easy and I can serve 20 people for less than RM14. Don't ask my why rinse them under tap water and then use egg white and bind them again. The answer is because my grandma said so. Sometimes, things that happen in life, they happen for a reason, you just don't question them. If doing it this way works, then I'll stick to it. It doesn't cost me anything. Yes, feel free to experiment but I am feeling very comfortable doing it the old Nana's way. I know many of you just drain the sago and plonk it into the mould and the starch will bind them together. Never try that before but if you're comfortable doing that, stick to it.

How this taste with Dulce de Leche instead of Gula Melaka? Distinct, special, not weird, yummy but not a big fan of it if you ask me. I like Dulce de Leche but no, I don't think they should find their way in my sago pudding next time. It's a matter of preference. Only I don't like it. Others love it. See?

Sago Gula Melaka. For merely sago, santan and gula melaka, why pay so much outside?

Talam Serimuka Telang

2010-06-27T14:16:00.000+09:30

I made these 'Talam Serimuka Telang' sometime back when I hosted a Nasi Lemak Lunch Party for a few good friends. I cut them into random shapes and serve them on a plate with a Pandan leaf on it, just so they get the idea of what goes in and what's Pandan. I tinted the glutinous rice with Bunga Telang given by Soni a. The original recipe was from the book 'Steamed Cakes' by Zubaidah Bt. Chepa. I got it when I was in Malaysia. It's called 'Talam Serimuka Batik' where the author uses a mixture of black and white glutinous rice but I decided to go blue naturally.

I cut the recipe in half and steam it in a 7'' round tray. The height was just right and it cuts up into two plate full of triangles, just enough and perfect as an after meal dessert for 6-8 people. Here's what Ive used:

Talam Serimuka Telang

200g white glutinous rice
Bunga Telang, a good handful
100g coconut cream
1/2 tsp salt
1-2 Pandan Leaves, knotted (optional)

Wash the glutinous rice under running water tap until no longer cloudy. Mix water with Bunga Telang and rub and squeeze it to extract a deep dark blue hue. Strain it and mix the water with the glutinous rice and soak it overnight. Drain it well and mix it with the coconut cream and salt. Pour into a greased pan and place the knotted Pandan leaves over and steam it over high heat for 25 minutes.

Make the custard now:

125g coconut cream
100g coconut milk
1.5 eggs (I use two small eggs)
1/2 cup sugar (I use just 5 tbsp of it)
50g plain flour
1/2 tsp applee green colouring (I use Pandan paste)

Mix all the ingredients for custard in a bowl and strain it once. When the rice is done, fluff it up with a fork and compress it into a greased pan (I use the same pan). Use a banana leaves or a glass covered with foil to compress well. Pour over the strained custard and cover the whole pan with foil tightly. Steam it over medium-low heat for 30 minutes.

Cool completely before slicing into diamonds or triangles. The book traced it out with a flower shaped cookie cutter but make sure you oil your cutter well. And use a plastic knife, lightly greased to slice them. It helps in getting neat cuts and they don't stick to the plastic knife.

This is a typical Malaysian Style Kuih you could easily get from wet markets. The Bunga Telang is solely optional but it does lend a nice fragrant to the rice. The Pandan leaves and paste was my addition but the book didn't say you need it. If your custard has bubbles in it, use a blow torch and run it across the surface and the bubbles will all magically disappear.

Try making it, it's easy and looks fantastic!

Create your own cheesecake: Dulce de Leche Cheesecake

2010-06-21T18:54:00.001+09:30

Made Dulce de Leche Cheesecakes for housemates and landlord to share. Unlike other recipe, this recipe has very prominent flavour of Dulce de Leche. Instead of chocolate wafers, I use Oreo cookies because I like it better.

I piped more Dulce de Leche (thinned down with milk and whipped until smooth, combined and fluffy) on the plate and serve it like that. My dark chocolate topping was very bitter, it's 85% cocoa content so the whole thing wasn't really sweet, though I did cut down more sugar and replace it with Dulce de Leche.

The recipe, create your own flavour at Finecooking.com!!!! It's so much fun. I bake it into several 7'' round pan and the resulting slice of cheesecake is smaller and cuter.

Dulce de Leche Cheesecake

8 oz. chocolate wafers, finely crushed (2 cups of crumbs)

3 Tbs. granulated sugar

7 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted

3 8-oz. packages cream cheese, at room temperature

3/4 cup dulce de leche

2 Tbs. all-purpose flour

Table salt

1-1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 Tbs. pure vanilla extract

4 large eggs, at room temperature

3 oz. chopped semisweet or bittersweet chocolate

5 Tbs. unsalted butter

1 Tbs. light corn syrup

Whipped cream, for garnish

Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 375°F.

In a medium bowl, stir together the chocolate wafer crumbs and 3 Tbs. granulated sugar. Mix in the melted butter until the crumbs are evenly moist and clump together slightly. Transfer the mixture to a 9-inch springform pan and press evenly onto the bottom and about 2 inches up the sides of the pan (to press, use plastic wrap or a flat-bottom measuring cup). Bake until the crust is fragrant and slightly darkened, 9 to 12 minutes. Let the pan cool on a rack. Lower the oven temperature to 300°F.

In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese, dulce de leche, flour, and a pinch of table salt on medium speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl and the paddle frequently, until very smooth and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Make sure the cheese has no lumps. Add the 1-1/4 cups granulated sugar and continue beating until well blended and smooth.

Add the vanilla and beat until blended, about 30 seconds. Add the eggs one at a time, beating just until blended. (Don’t overbeat once the eggs have been added or the cheesecake will puff too much and crack as it cools.) Pour the filling into the cooled crust and smooth the top.

Bake at 300°F until the center jiggles like Jell-O when nudged, 55 to 65 minutes. The cake will be slightly puffed around the edges, and the center will still look moist. Set on a rack and cool completely. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled, at least 8 hours and up to 3 days. The cake can also be frozen at this point for up to 1 month. (To freeze, put the unmolded, cooled cake on a rimmed baking sheet in the freezer, uncovered, until the top is cold and firm; then wrap it in two layers of plastic and one layer of foil. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator.)

In a small bowl, melt the 3 oz. chopped chocolate and the butter. Add the corn syrup and whisk until smooth. Unclasp and remove the side of the springform pan and run a long, thin metal spatula under the bottom crust of the cheesecake. Carefully slide the cake onto a flat serving plate. Pour the ganache on the cheesecake and spread evenly.

Garnish with whipped cream and serve immediately. To cut, run a thin knife under hot water, wipe it dry, and cut the cake into slices, heating and wiping the knife after every slice.

(Serves 10 to 12)

Cantonese Egg Tarts

2010-06-18T23:48:00.000+09:30

This is another reason we fight. We fight for the last piece of egg tart. It is that good!!!! The filling is oh-so-yummy and oh-so-silky, it's wobbly, it's smooth and it's custardy.... The crust was flaky and buttery. Absolutely love it! The moment I sank my teeth into the first one, I told myself this is the one. So good!!!!

It's Cantonese Egg Tarts and I think no one knows better than Christine. After all, I always have thought egg tarts originate from Hong Kong anyway, they're the pioneer to all sorts of egg tarts. Those flaky ones you have in Dim Sum restaurant and also these lovely babies. A lot easier to make and equally tasty.... I halved the recipe and made 6 tarts with this one and the diameter of my mould, measured from the wider end, rim to rim is 8.5cm. You can check out the step-by-step of how to make this in Christine's blog but I'm just gonna post up the recipe that I have changed to my own liking.

After bread kneading, this is the second most therapeutic thing to me, rolling them out. It's a breeze with this dough. The sweetness is just right for me. Feel free to add another tablespoon if you like it sweeter.

Cantonese Egg Tarts
(makes 6 tarts)

Filling:
1 whole egg
1 egg white
3 tbsp castor sugar
1/2 cup (125ml) boiling hot water
3 tbsp (45ml) evaporated milk

Dissolve the sugar in the boiling water and cool it until just warm to touch. Add in the remaining ingredients and whisk lightly, thoroughly combined but not foamy. Strain it twice into a spouted jug.

Pastry:
1 cup (110g) plain flour
60g butter, cubed
2 tbsp icing sugar
Small dash of vanilla extract
1 egg yolk

Pulse everything except the egg yolk in a food processor until crumbly and that the largest piece of butter is the size of a green pea. Add in the yolk and pulse a while until crumbly and combined a little. Pour them out into a large bowl and Mix with your finger tip to gather them. Dribble in a little of the filling mixture as you go and stop when everything is combined and you get a soft dough.

You can chill it at this stage but I find it unnecessary. Roll them out on a flour-dusted surface to just 5mm thick. I find a Margarita glass fits perfectly since I don't have a proper cookie ring/cutter. Press the circles into the fluted mould and set aside and repeat. For the last mould, I gather everything together and form a ball, lightly flatten it and press it into the tart mould as even as possible.

Pour the filling over and bake it in a preheated oven of 200°C. When you pop the tart in, turn the heat down to 180°C and bake until it is just slightly wobbling at the centre. Remove it from the oven and it will continue cooking. When you unmould it while it is warm, the filling sets just right.

Serve warm. Whoever that invented deserve my praise, they're the best but for now, Christine is my new Goddess of Egg Tarts. Thanks for the recipe, we all absolutely love it. I regretted I procrastinated so long to make them even though Ive bookmarked it ages back!

Dulce De Leche...a bitter or a sweet affair?

2010-06-16T17:12:00.002+09:30

As I am typing this, I am sitting next to a freak, a soccer freak that yelled non-stop...words like Offside, Foul, Walao!!! kept popping nonstop through out the 90 minutes. "I think [insert any team that is his favourite] will win, I support them"..... There you go and you get the idea.... it surprises me how much I can do for him and how willing I am. I don't like football really but for him, I learn so much in 3 days, what is offside, how foul works, referees and linesmen and so forth.... And little did I know, I grew to love football even more everyday... It gets pretty boring watching alone so I wanna be there for him and complete with enough layerings for winter and cold beer, we are good to go.

Unfortunately, in a relationship, it is never fair and there is no such thing as payback. I don't remember a time he accompanied me bake something in the kitchen. The only time he did it was an American Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting for my birthday. Hell yeah, it was very edible! He even made his own stencil and place it over the cake and dusted cocoa powder over it.

The problem is, the cake was warm and he slathered a good cream cheese frosting over a warm cake. And dusted cocoa powder over it with stencil. When the whole thing reaches me, it was nothing more than a pile of mush, ugly but very very sweet. It was an 'awwwww....' at the first mouhthful he fed me. It was an even better 'awwww....' at the second bite where he pull me close to his shoulder pecked me on my forehead and whispered 'Happy Birthday Sweetheart' into my left ear. Rest is history.

I hate Aaron. He doesn't remember all these stuffs really. He is just your typical average guy...he doesn't even know I am upset with him now. You see, the problem all started with nothing more than a can of condensed milk that soon ended up being turned into a can of Dulce De Leche, magically like how a frog can become a prince.

It was all fine, I made the Dulce De Leche yesterday while we watched both matches and stayed in the dining room for long hours. Good time really to make something so time consuming that needs constant checking (not really, I'll show you my way later). So I left it to cool overnight and wanted to have all the excitement and rubbings of hands in glee as we go through my journey of making Dulce De Leche and popping open that can. And we have 2 cameras. Remember the one that Aaron got me? The problem is, if given a choice and he is not using it, I prefer to use his camera, simply because it is a better point-and-shoot. Better resolution, you can adjust the exposure and shutter speed and etc.... but with mine you can't. It's better off for something you would wanna bring along for a long vacation, cheap but very practical.

So what happen was, when I pull out his camera, I realised the battery died on me. I spent a good 45 minutes hunting for the charger and still not able to find it. It was not until I got into his room that I realise the basket of shirts that I've nicely washed, ironed and folded for him are all still in the laundry basket. He practically never even unpack his luggage ever since coming back from Perth. See, that's another problem because I have issues with being neat, tidy and very very clean, and he knows it.

I hate how he doesn't appreciate my effort in doing things and cleaning his room entirely for him just so he comes home to a sweet home and be very comfortable. I hate how he always stress to me to put things in its original position so we could easily know where to find things later on and he is not doing so. I hate how he squeeze such a pathetic dollop of toothpaste onto his toothbrush and insisted it's enough when even my neighbour's 5-years-old boy know it is an insufficient amount. I hate it when he took off his shirt to go to bed just because he doesn't like sleeping in shirts because he felt like something is pulling on him every time he makes a turn and he ended up getting blocked and stuffy nose the next morning. I hate how stubborn he is. I hate how he never listens to me.

I know...I sound so demanding... I hate to have to get upset with him over the fact that I can't take good photos but you see, that is secondary. The primary one is he doesn't know I am upset and doesn't put things where they should be. You're probably wondering how can I praise my man from head to toe and the very next minute, bring him down to hell. Talk about birthday cake, Aaron is my heaven and also my hell! Anyway, the charger is now found and the lighting now is bad because it's getting late and because I cannot wait till tomorrow to share and pop the can with you and because I already dug my spoon in it and am in heaven.

He is still one happy man and he doesn't know I am mad and I'm no longer mad anymore anyway now that the sweet Dulce De Leche make up for his bitter unintentional mistakes. So Dulce De Leche, it's easy. One ingredient is all you need and that is a can of sweetened condensed milk. I am a bit risky, I do what all olden days mothers would do, heating the condensed milk in its can, and it's a pull-ring can! Also note that it's sweetened condensed milk. Do not use unsweetened condensed milk because in some parts of the world, unsweetened condensed milk is the same as evaporated milk.

For those who said you've never seen Nestle having a pull-ring can (there is this dude in the forum that really lives out in the sticks!), yes they do exist here Down Under. And the label clearly says ' Caution: Do not heat in can'. Anyway, I went ahead and do it. I don't wanna encourage anyone to do it but yeah...I still live to tell you the story.

Simply bring a very deep pot with heavy lid filled with water and drop that can in there. Make sure you remove the paper label from the can else you get a pile of mushy paper fit for recycle centre. Make sure your water is 2 inches high from the top of the can and you will never need to refill and add more water. Place over the glass lid and crank up the heat. It took a good 15 minutes for my water to boil. Lower the heat to barely simmering, the lowest your stove can get and go watch your football, though I did open up the lid and check every hour or so. I did mine for 4 hours or maybe 4.5 hours but feel free to stop at say 3 hours.

Just remember that the longer you simmer them, the more viscous it gets and you can thin them down with milk or even water later on if you find them too thick to your liking. The first picture in this post is thinned down with a splash of milk and coated on a spoon with a drizzle of good pink salt so I can just eat them like lollipop. Yes, that's my teeth mark! My glass lid has one small hole that allows steam to escape at a slow rate. I cannot stress enough to you that the very moment the water is not covering the can, the whole thing will explode and you get Dulce De Leche all over your kitchen walls and ceiling, it is so gooey and messy it is not funny.

I was so excited when I pull the ring just like that and a lil brownish stuffs showed a little through the yet-to-be-opened-lid. It excites me and to know if this stuff works is just a pull away!!!

When time is up, turn off the heat and place the whole pot of water under running tap water to bring down the temperature gradually. If you take them out directly and attempt to open it, there is a chance it might explode and you'll ruin your pretty face for life. The can might look like it bulged a little simply because it is pressurised but never mind that. Dry the can and place it on your kitchen counter and let it sit overnight.

The next day, open up that can and at first it will look like it is separated and that water seeps in. Give it a very good stir and soon, everything will give way and what you get is a luscious, thick, creamy, goeey, sweet and easy Dulce De Leche. There you have it, homemade Dulce De Leche for a million use, to drizzle over unsweetened ice cream, to make cheesecake with it, to top your fruits and to make Banoffee Pie. Endless way to use it and because of its high sugar content, it will last for a while in your fridge so make good use of it.

Comments disallowed for this post. Any questions regarding Dulce De Leche, please email me. No, I am fine. Really. Words of comfort will be entertained but any words on how to maintain a relationship and how to be patient with your partner/spouse and yada yada... will absolutely not be tolerated. I know Aaron better, trust me and don't judge us, pretty please. Thanks.

Revive with Meatball Baguette & Live on Australia!

2010-06-13T16:48:00.003+09:30

This is what I've made for our supper tonight. I'm just gonna pop that in the grilled for a couple of minutes and it's gonna be ready by 4 AM. Yes, Germany vs. Australia at 4 freaking AM! Despite it being winter now and it's gonna be really cold, there will be a lot of pubs jam-packed with Aussies watching Socceroos. We've chose to stay indoor in our comfort zone watching the match. Germany is pretty good, I have to admit but I'm pretty sure the Aussies will give Germans a tough fight. I reckon we could get a draw out of this, but a win would be perfecto! Go Aussie Go!!!

Below is a the official World Cup Song for Year 2010, it's called Waving Flag just to boost the football spirit in us a bit. It's a pretty good song really, click it!

There is no particular reason why I made these. I wanted to make something that represents Aussie and Aaron wanted something savoury. I could only think of lamingtons and meat pie but meat pie was too much of a work. Passed by Subway and saw them promoting their foot long meatball rolls. I straight away knew this would be it. I got around making Tessa Kiros's meatballs (recipe later on!). I made a large batch, some for spaghetti with meatballs and some for this foot long baguette. I throw in some Bega cheese slices, onion rings and stuffed the top and bottom with alfalfa sprouts. That gooey orange sauce you see is Perinaise bought from Nando's. It's a sweet and spicy mayonnaise, infused with Peri-peri and Nando's goodness. Absolutely love it!

Yeah..so that's about it. Before I sign off, here is another clip. It's called 'I Still Call Australia Home'. Probably the most expensive 2 minutes advertisement ever made in Australia, summing up to USD3 Mil but it's worth it. It's meaningful, it's rejoicing and it's gathering all Aussies from all walks of like to reunite. It's my all time favourite and I hope you'll like it too!

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi! Go Socceroos, go!!!

The Art of Quenelling and a Deconstructed Caramelized Banana Tart

2010-06-11T17:25:00.003+09:30

I have been to restaurant many times and being served food, especially desserts in the form of a beautiful dollop. It's not any dollop, but a very clean, neat and crisp dollop that resembles the shape of a football. This, my dear readers, is called a Quenelle. It is achieved with nothing more than a spoon. All you need is hot water with a spoon in it, a spatula to scrap down the sides of whatever you are going to Quenelle and of course, what you want to Quenelle. In this case, I quenelled whipped cream.

There is no one thing such as Quenelle spoon and you can form Quenelle with anything from a teaspoon to a spoon, though I do have a favourite spoon for quenelling. You can do it with whipped cream, any type of mousses, ice creams and sorbets and even mashed potatoes. I've tried with all and I am a little confident in posting this.

I don't want to say this is the right way to form Quenelle but this is what I was taught by chef. It is all in the wrist and the swift movements and I cannot stress enough that there is no shortcut in achieving this. Some things just take a lot of practice and quenelling is one of them, but once you pick it up, you'll have it for a lifetime. I am okay, but I still could improve.

I've posted a video here as well. It's not a top-notch quality but it's good enough to show you how I did it. I used whipped cream here and I use one spoon. There is a quenelling technique that uses two spoons but I only know the one spoon Quenelle technique and it is easier than using two spoons in my opinion.

If the Quenelle is stuck to the spoon and refuse to be released to the serving plate nicely, gently warm the back of your spoon by pressing it against your palm and it should come right off. This shouldn't happen as long as you are quenelling with a hot and wet spoon. Hot tap water is fine, boiling water is too hot and will melt the things you're quenelling.

For every time you finish one Quenelle, scrap down the sides of the bowl with a spatula to smooth it out before beginning quenelling again. It is best to practice with mashed potatoes because they don't melt so easily but if you do it with whipped cream, you'll get to see how much pressure you need to apply and you improve faster.

Here's a dessert, deconstructed caramelized banana tart with dark chocolate mousse Quenelle and Chantilly cream Quenelle. If you've mastered the art of quenelling, you'll realise food can be presented in a more elegant way and it really does taste better!

The steps to form Quenelle are as shown in the video. Just scoop a hot wet spoon into the cream towards you, with the initial angle of the spoon almost perpendicular to your eyes. Scoop it towards you in one swift motion so that it curls up naturally. Drop it back in there and wet and clean your spoon and drain off excess water but don't wipe it. Scoop the dollop that you've dropped back and press it against the side of the bowl and all the way in an upward stroke. Immediately place it on a serving plate. If it refuse to release nicely, warm the back of the spoon on your palm and try releasing again.

For the deconstructed caramelized banana tart, make a batch of the sugar cookie tart crust. Use a cookie ring and press out four large rounds with it and crumble up the rest finely. Make a batch of chocolate mousse and whipped up some chantilly cream and flavour it with vanilla bean paste.

For the caramelized banana, melt some butter and EVOO in a pan and chopped up two bananas. You can coin it like me or slice it lengthwise so you get long strands. Toss them into coarse sugar and dust off excess sugar. Place them on the pan. Let it sizzle and caramelize away, checking frequent if it's browning nicely. Flip over and cook a while until the bananas are softened, but not mushy.

To assemble, place one tart ring each on a serving plate. Place a Quenelle of chocolate mousse on each of them. Scatter with more tart crumbs on the Quenelle and place another tart ring on top or just by the side. Arrange the caramelized bananas around it and finish off with a final touch of chantilly cream Quenelle.

Serve immediately. I love the warm bananas texture paired with the cold chocolate mousse. The bitter mousse and the warm sweet bananas are to die for! I basically love all sorts of cooked fruits so don't take my word for it. Try it for yourself!!!!

What's with all the rave about football and World Cup today? I'm no football fan but I promised Aaron I'll stay up and watch football with him any time he wants and I'll just sit down next to him with a large bowl of mashed potatoes and practice my football shaping skills! Australia is in World Cup!!!! For once, almost all the matches are aired through national channels. I didn't know Aussies can play football really. They're famous for their footies though, some crappy football in my opinion with crazy rules!

6 packs of beers, checked! Assorted salted nuts, checked! Popcorns, checked! Mashed potatoes, checked! We're both all geared up for a little football celebration and quenelling session! World Cup, here we come!!!

German Vanilla Pudding with Mandarins

2010-06-08T19:20:00.004+09:30

Aaron is back! He got another job offer, he must be really headache now! Anyway, we ate this dessert and it was easy and simply good. It's German Vanilla Pudding served with macerated mandarin segments, butterscotch sauce and some leftover toasted pistachio nuts and walnut crumble from my previous attempt on Baklava Ice Cream.

This one contains no gelatine nor agar-agar. It is thickened with cornstarch and you pour it into a wet mould. It also unmoulds beautifully. I let a little macerated mandarin syrup dribble down the sides of the mould just like unmoulding Panna Cotta.

I also smeared some leftover butterscotch sauce from making sticky date pudding on the plate. All the elements on the plate complimented each other beautifully. You omit the mandarin curls since it is just there purely for decoration. You can eat it but I don't, it's simply too strong to my liking.

I adapted this recipe from Mowie of Mowielicious. I didn't have strawberries and let's face it, it is winter here now. Strawberries are long gone from market. I make do with what I have. This is easy and any macerated fruits will pair along beautifully. I make enough to serve just the two of us and cut down the sugar a bit because of the butterscoth sauce. Feel free to add more if you like.

German Vanilla Pudding
(makes enough to serve one as an after meal dessert)

For the pudding:

1 tbsp castor sugar
2.5 tbsp cornflour
1 cup cold milk

1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste

Have ready a one cup capacity mould or just 2 ramekins of 1/2 cup capacity each. Make sure it is slightly wet inside. Place it into the fridge while you make the pudding. Place 3 tbsp milk from the 1 cup of milk into a small bowl and whisk in the sugar, cornflour and vanilla paste into a smooth slurry.

Pour the remaining milk into a wetted milk pot and gently bring to a boil. Once the milk in the pan starts to bubble, remove from the heat, and whisk in the vanilla paste mixture. It should thicken immediately. Place pan back onto the heat and keep whisking. Allow to bubble for 1 minute then remove from heat and pour into the cold bowl set aside earlier. Allow to cool at room temperature first before refrigerating. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.You can choose to refrigerate it with a layer of plastic wrap touching the surface but I didn't quite bother. I like it with skin formation for easy removal.

While the pudding is cooling, segment the mandarin oranges and add a couple of tablespoons of castor sugar and a splash of Grand Marnier to it. Mix everything around well and let it sit in the fridge until the pudding is ready to serve. Make sure you stir the macerated mandarins once in a while.

To serve, place a serving plate over a bowl of pudding and turn it upside down in one quick motion. The pudding should easily slide onto the plate, maintaining it's shape. If it is not coming out, dribble a little macerated mandarin juice on the pudding and let it stand 5 mins before flipping. Serve with the garnishes or any other elements you prefer.

Garnish:
Butterscotch sauce
Macerated Mandarin Syrup and Segments (see above)
Toasted pistachios, roughly chopped
Toasted walnuts, crumbled

I am so happy Aaron is back and a little sweet dessert goes a long way. We had a fun day out today, he accompanied me and we bought some stuffs for myself. He sighed when he saw me bought yet another plate and he asked what's this for this time? It's an awesome looking black plate. Also bought a pair of black leather boots and a large wool quilt to keep me warm through the winter.

I am one happy girl now and I wish life would be so good every single day!

Churros

2010-06-05T17:27:00.000+09:30

These churros are adapted from Tessa Kiros's fourth book, Piri Piri Starfish. As from the title, one could deduce that this whole book is about Portuguese cooking and I know, the first question everyone pops to me, aren't these Spanish?

According to Tessa, these are available in the north of Portugal at the funfair...everyone on the streets eating sugar-dusted churros from paper packets. These are perhaps more Spanish than Portuguese, but you know how it is with your neigbours...you peep over the fence, are inspired by their flowers, and have all the same ingredients and climate so everything grows the same. Countries are just the same, peeping over borders and being inspired by what you'll find.

You'll need a piping bag with a large star-shaped nozzle to give this their lovely crispy ridges. I didn't have any and ended up using my largest one which unfortunately, is still very small in diameter. I have also experimented both ways. I've read some churros that requires piping on a baking sheet and freezing it for 20mins before it is fried to perfection. Others require the churros to be piped straight into the hot oil. I tried both and I can tell you if you pipe it straight into the hot oil, the shape holds and is more prominent. But however, you couldn't get cute little hearts like that if you pipe it directly into the oil can you?

Well, maybe you can if you're an expert but I'm no expert and I in fact very much hate deep-frying at home. Shallow fry is enough to cause havoc let alone deep-fry but the stingy side in me refuse to pay even a dollar for nothing more than just dough.

Eggs, butter, flour and sugar....that's practically what you need to make these. That's my man standing at the back willingly posing for me. We did this together last week because he couldn't bear the thoughts of having oil splattered over me. I made the dough and he deep-fried it to perfection. We kept eating as we go along and it was gone in no time.

This one will make about 10 if you use a 1cm star-shaped nozzle though I'd say they'll look best when they're piped put from larger nozzles. For the dusting, I've used one part of cinnamon powder to 3 parts of icing sugar and I think they are the best at this ratio. Feel free to try your own ratio.

Churros
(makes about 10)

50g unsalted butter
150ml water
3/4 cup plain flour (90g)
1.5 tbsp castor sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
1.5 eggs
Oil for frying
Icing sugar and cinnamon to serve

Put the water and the butter in a small heavy-based pan and heat until the butter has melted, then bring just to a boil. Meanwhile, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Whisk the eggs. When the water comes to the boil, remove it from the heat, pour in the flour mixture and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until you have a soft pastry with no lumps. Return to the heat for a minute or two until the mixture forms a smooth ball. Tip the dough into a bowl and leave to cool a bit.

Using electric beaters, beat in the egg bit by bit until it is completely incorporated and the dough is smooth and glossy. Put into your pastry bag with a 1 cm star nozzle. Heat enough oil to cover the base of your frying pan. Squeeze 10-12 cm lengths of dough directly into the hot oil, nipping off the ends clearly with scissors or a sharp knife. Fry on both sides, turning when crisp and golden, and lift out onto kitchen paper to absorb the oil. Serve, sprinkled very generously with icing sugar and cinnamon.

We heart these churros and hope you will too!

Pumpkin Custard Buns

2010-06-03T09:47:00.001+09:30

Can I start off this post by saying thank you for all the raves and wishes on Aaron's birthday. You all have no ideas how much the comments meant to me and Aaron. Having said that, we really appreciate silent readers and emails as well. Aaron is in Perth now as I am typing this. Left this morning, won't come back till next Monday. He's got an interview with Rio Tinto and he's there to meet a friend as well. He indeed has secured a job but he wants the free trip to Perth. He is one happy guy now. I'm happy too because I got the interview as well! I'll be flying end of this month and I really hope I'll secure a job this time!

Back to simple, back to bread. Or buns to be exact. This is adapted from Aunty Yochana. I The original recipe uses sweet potato but I've used butternut pumpkin instead. This recipe is so special because the filling calls for vanilla ice cream! You basically just combine everything and ice cream was part of it. This also calls for instant custard powder, something you might not necessarily have and can find if you're in Australia.

If you can get your hands on all the ingredients, then try this. I might cut down the sugar a little next time because the ice cream was a bit too sweet already since I use store-bought stuffs. I also changed the shaping method as you could see as I wanted something simple, just flatten and fill and pinch to seal and that's it. I probably still haven't got over the whole Heaven and Hell thingy.... The buns are very very very, very soft. It couldn't have been any softer for a simple sweet bun that doesn't call for water roux.

Pumpkin Custard Buns
(makes approximately 10 buns)

300 bread flour
2.5 tsp instant dry yeast
1/4 cup castor sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1/4 cup milk powder
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup fresh milk
40 gm. butter, softened
Pumpkin seeds for decoration

Whisk together the first 5 ingredients. Make a well and pour in the water and fresh milk. Knead until it forms a soft dough and add in the butter. Continue kneading until it is smooth, shiny, satiny and that all the butter is fully incorporated. I usually do 15-20 mins. Don't bother about the stretch test because if you knead by hand, it is almost impossible to achieve however the texture, I assure you, is not compromised. You gotta trust me on this one.

I knead on my clean wooden table. After 15mins, I use a heavy glass bowl and cover it. Yes, I proof it just like that. There's really no need for a new, clean, greased bowl and plastic wrap. Consider the environment. Let it rise/proof for 40mins or so or until double in size.

Knock down the dough with your knuckles and knead to form a smooth dough again. Weigh it into 60g portions. Cover with a damp tea towel and let it relax for 10mins or so. Now, roll it into a round ball and place a portion of the filling (recipe below) on it. Pinch the seams to seal very well and place it on a lined and greased baking tray, seam side down. Repeat with the rest of the buns and Let it rise one last time until double in size.

Almost there...now preheat your oven to 190°C and very gently glaze your buns.

I used to always overdo it because I don't know what to do with the remaining egg wash. Don't, please don't soak the buns. Just make an omelette or add to your fried rice but don't over glaze your buns....
Scatter some pumpkin seeds on them. Well, it's a pumpkin filled bun so of course you use pepitas! And I arranged them rather than scatter, simply because I'm such a freak in being perfect.

Bake them in a preheated oven until they're evenly browned, about 10mins would do. I am weird like this, I like my buns to have a salted taste to it. I always brush my buns with salted melted butter the moment they're out from the oven. It gives them a very nice saltiness when you sink your teeth into it. It also gives it the shine and glossy look you want like faux buns.

Filling

200g sweet potato/pumpkin (peeled, steamed and mashed)
125g vanilla ice-cream
1/4 cup castor sugar (I would use just 2 tbsp next time!)
50g instant custard powder

Place everything in a food processor and pulse until combined. Weigh into 10 portions and chill it well. Roll into a roundish ball and chill again until ready to use.

Cool slightly on wire rack and serve warm with tea....Yummmy! Okay, I'm gonna go do all my backlogs and post it up since I'm free these few days when Aaron is not around. That goes to show how much time I spent with him and it's been years and I'm not sick of him at all, not sure about him but yeah, we're very much attached, like glue.

This post have been submitted to Yeastspotting, a weekly bread showcase organized by Susan of Wild Yeast.

Heaven and Hell Cake

2010-05-29T19:43:00.003+09:30

In a period of 5 years, you learn a lot about a person, whether you want to or not.That was how in 2005, I came to know so well about a man who I never thought would change my life so drastically. Everything was about to change, for a better one. This man is very much passionate about food, just like me. As much as he tries to enjoy the best quality caviar you serve him or your aged old balsamic vinegar, he still is very much down to simple food. He will still eat it if you insist but he'll tell me later what was served to him, they're not delicious. I like how he say no to food, it's very cute.

Simple things in life are beautiful. It's just like him, it's beautiful cooking for Aaron. It's a breeze....because when he dig in your food, you could tell he really appreciates them and he brings out the Mum's side of me because with him around, I always have a tendency to cook winter food. Warm, hearty, filling food such as beef stew, Pastitsio and Coq Au Vin. Food that takes forever to prepare and forever to cook. But I still do it because for him, it's worth it -and this is coming from a girl who spent one-third of her life in a fast moving city, my oh my...how he changed me and influenced my life....

Having said that, it's Aaron's birthday today and no, I'm not gonna let his birthday cake be a simple one, despite him always telling me 'less is more'. Having said that, it's also my mother's birthday today. Yes, cheapo Aaron earned so much brownie points from mum just by sharing the same birthday, my mum really likes this guy seriously it freaks me out sometimes. As you are reading this post, we have wished and 'kind of celebrated' with my mum. We called home and also 'Skyped' my mum. She's very happy, virtually eating the cake. Did I mention my mother's favourite cake is either Orange Cake or Pandan Cake and period. Anything else, she'll hardly eats it but if my mother is here, I know she would eat this cake simply because I am amazing in her eyes. How I know? I made a vanilla bean ice cream once and accidentally doubled the sugar and my mum hates sweet stuff. She ate the whole scoop and said it was yummy. I absolutely love my mum sometimes. People around me sometimes are also too nice to be mean and gimme frank opinion. It's a love-hate situation.

Aaron likes cakes and chocolates but not the expensive ones you get from award winning restaurants. He likes the typical steamed chocolate cake and please use the cheapest Homebrand cocoa powder if you could because he is allergic to Dutch Pure Cacao, just like how he is allergic to figs, prawns, caviar and so forth simply because they are not delicious. Hot piping bowl of pho and a glass of cold soy milk or chrysanthemum tea, that is my Aaron. He likes a chiffon cake, plain as it is but I would throw ganache or sugar glaze over it and that would drive him mad. The only time he would tolerate frosting is when I make banana cake with a peanut butter and chocolate frosting. Any other times, he would never forgive me.

This is one of the rare occasion where he forgives me. In fact, we both regret why did we chance upon this amazingly good cake rather late. I chose a cake with frosting, or rather ganache to be exact. It's Peanut Butter Mousse sandwiched in between layers of Light Angel Food Cake and Rich Devil's Chocolate Cake. Now you know why this cake is called a Heaven and Hell cake. Because this cake is simply irresistible, heaven at your lips because it's lipsmacking good and hell to your body and pocket. The cake ain't cheap to make. The cake ain't easy to make, that's a dead sure one. Wanna hear the worst one? Calorie count my dear! The cake has 1,0007 calories and 64 grams of fat per slice and that figure has not taken into account the raspberry coulis, the quenelle of raspberry sorbet and fresh raspberries that you serve as garnish along each slice of cake.

This Heaven and Hell cake, a wonderful creation by Stephan Pyles from Dallas is beautiful to look at and beautiful to eat. If you could, slice them into 16 servings rather than 12 because they are oh-my-goodness so rich that I didn't make the raspberry garnishing set to go with it. We downed it with a tall glass of milk. Not we, just me. Aaron doesn't like milk, I love anything with dairy. Aaron loves vegetables and I hate greens! He just loves being the opposite of me. Opposite attracts....

I gave Aaron a few choices of birthday cakes. It was this Heaven and Hell cake, a Tres Leches Cake and a Chocolate Ganache cake. He picked the one with peanut butter in no time! It was good, sinfully good we couldn't finish it, we shared it with housemates and friends to finish it. Thank God I have a mini bar fridge in my room that is now empty and only storing this cake in it because this cake is so huge and it simply takes on smell from your meat or durian too easily.

Also because we're all happy about Aaron's birthday and my Mother's Birthday, I'm submitting this recipe to the Monthly Mingle theme this time around, Special Sweet Treats. I believe nothing beats a slice of this calorie-cum-sugar loaded cake! A special sweet treat for two special and important people in my life!

Below here is the very lengthy recipe for a gigantic 10'' round cake, along with modifications I've made to make it a 'light-and-not-overly-sweet-cake'. Aaron doesn't like overly sweet stuffs and it's his birthday after all! I assemble the cake with all layers frozen. It's so much easier to work with this way, trust me! I've cut down the ganache a bit because I felt there was too much of it.

For the Peanut Butter Mousse, I added in more cream and use less cheese because I wanted a 'lighter-in-texture' filling. I also added gelatine to stabilize the cream so it'll hold its shape better even after chilling overnight in the fridge. I love the chocolate cake but I still change shortening to oil and cut down the sugar because I wanted a really moist cake. It was so moist that it broke in half after I slice it and was trying to transfer it to a plastic wrap to freeze. It wasn't obvious. The ganache did the trick and act as glue for me. I failed my first attempt in making Angel Food Cake and have to redo it again. I don't know why my cake is so yellowy comapred to other Angel Food Cake out there. I had so much leftover yolks I make creme brulee and ice cream with it the following day. Now, we have so many frozen desserts in our freezer compartment. I wasn't too sure about keeping raw egg yolks because they don't work and keep well like egg whites. I make everything the night before except for the Angel Food Cake because I wasn't sure if it'll keep well and there's no more rooms in the fridge and freezer for anything else!

If you have the guts, time to kill or really wanna impress or propose to your partner, do it. I know, you don't have to tell me..... I am an amazing girlfriend/partner and my housemates and friends are so spoilt by me....

Heaven and Hell Cake
(courtesy of Stephan Pyles)

FOR THE GANACHE: Probably the easiest component of the whole cake!

300g dark chocolate (I use Lindt's)
1/2 cup thickened cream

Place the chocolate in a large stainless steel bowl. Bring cream to a boil in a large saucepan and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for 5 minutes to melt the chocolates a bit. Using a whisk, combine the chocolate and cream. Run a rubber spatula down the sides of the bowl and cover with plastic wrap and set aside to let rest for 4 hours. I chill it in the fridge. Use the ganache to crumb coat and reheat remaining with a dollop of butter for pouring later.

FOR THE ANGEL FOOD CAKE: Failed the first one and had to make another one!

1 1/4 cups icing sugar
1 cup cake flour
1 1/2 cups egg whites
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1/8 tsp. kosher salt ( I use 1/4 tsp salt instead) 1 cup sugar
2 tsp. vanilla (Omitted)
1 tsp. almond extract (I substituted this with vanilla bean paste)

Preheat the oven to 160°C. Line the bottom of a 10" round cake pan with ungreased parchment paper. In a medium bowl, sift together confectioners' sugar and flour; set flour mixture aside. In a large bowl, beat egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt with a hand held mixer on low speed until frothy. Increase mixer speed to medium, sprinkle in sugar and vanilla bean paste, and beat until stiff peaks form. Sprinkle half of the confectioners' sugar–flour mixture over egg whites; using a rubber spatula, fold until just combined. Repeat with remaining flour mixture. Pour batter into prepared cake pan and bake until top of cake springs back when touched, 45–50 minutes. Transfer cake to a rack and let cool upside down.

Very gently slice the cake in half. I use a long strong thread and place it around the circumference of the cake where I gently marked with toothpick and scored lightly. I tie both ends together and cross my fingers and tie a knot quickly. Voila, cake split in half and it's still very fluffy after that, it's like sponge!

FOR THE DEVIL'S FOOD CAKE: I trim the cake a little and had leftovers, Baker's treat!

1/2 cup vegetable shortening, plus more for pan (I use canola oil)
1 1/2 cups cake flour, plus more for pan
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 cup coffee
1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted
1 1/2 cups sugar (I use 1 1/4 cup)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 175°C. Grease two 10" round cake pan with butter and dust with flour to coat; shake out excess flour and set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together cake flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder; set flour mixture aside. In another medium bowl, whisk the coffee and cocoa powder until smooth; set coffee mixture aside. In a large bowl, beat the butter, sugar, vanilla, and eggs with a handheld mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy, 2 minutes. Alternately add the flour mixture and the coffee mixture to the bowl in 3 stages, beating to combine after each addition. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean, 30–35 minutes; transfer to a rack and let cool completely.

If your oven cannot fit two 10'' pans at once, split the recipe in half and bake twice. If you let any batter with baking soda in it sit longer than 10 mins, you'll get beehive cake. Freeze each layer individually, wrapped tightly in plastic to avoid freezer burn.

FOR THE PEANUT BUTTER MOUSSE: So expensive to make!!!!!

680g cream cheese, room temperature and softened a bit (I use 375g)
1 kg smooth peanut butter, at room temperature (I use 500g)
3 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted (I use 2 cups)
Stabilized whipped cream (see below)

In a very very large bowl, beat cream cheese, peanut butter, and icing sugar with a hand held mixer on medium speed until smooth and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Using a rubber spatula, fold the stabilized whipped cream into the peanut butter mixture. Weigh the mousse into 3 equal parts and set the mousse in 3 separate bowls. Chill in the refrigerator until needed.

Stabilized whipped cream

1/2 tsp gelatine
1 tbsp cold water

1 tbsp icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
300ml thickened cream (It's usually the whole tub)

Place the cold water in a shallow bowl and sprinkle over the gelatine. Let it stand for 5 minutes. Bain-marie it over medium low heat until completely dissolved. Whip the remaining ingredients until almost stiff and pour in the gelatine liquid and continue whisking until stiff peak. Keep covered until ready to use. Just gently fold it around with a rubber spatula upon using.

ASSEMBLING THE CAKE: I know, my layering is horrible, you don't have to tell me!

Place 1 layer of the frozen Devil's Chocolate Cake on it and spread 1 bowl of the Peanut Butter Mousse over the top with a butter knife. Top mousse with a layer of the Angel Food Cake and spread with another bowl of Peanut Butter Mousse. Repeat with the last layer of frozen Devil's Chocolate Cake, Peanut Butter Mousse and last layer of Angel Food Cake. Stir ganache until thick and smooth. Spread evenly over the top and sides of the cake with a butter knife. Chill it for 2 hours. Warm up the remaining ganache to pouring consistency and pour over the cake, covering all top and sides evenly, using a spatula to grab some of that glaze back on the cake. Refrigerate the cake for 2 hours again before slicing. If you don't have a fridge for the cake itself, try to put the cake in a large airtight container and chill it, though I strongly doubt you'll be able to find any container that can fit a cake 10'' round in diameter and 5.5'' in height!

My final tip is to slice both the cakes in half and flash freeze them on a flat baking tray for 20mins. It helps in ensuring an even and flat cake. I didn't and I just freeze them when they are cooled completely and very soft and fluffy and moist. When I took it out to assemble, I notice my angel food cake was slightly squashed and not flat but I couldn't be bothered anymore at this stage and just frost and assemble them!

SERVES 10 – 12 (I'd say 16!)

I'm exhausted now and I know I will get a good sleep tonight. Unfortunately, no candlenight dinner because Aaron is doing night shift today. The making of Heaven and Hell Cake, it's a very messy and long affair, I did so much cleaning up. Maybe I'm incompetent. Do others feel as restless as me after making this cake? Maybe I was too hard on myself because everything has to be perfect. It's baking for an occasion.

Happy Birthday Aaron. Happy Birthday Mum! Aaron, I know you're in the room next door as I'm typing this but if you're reading this, drop me a comment will you? Also, if you haven't realize, you do know that you're the luckiest bloke still alive on earth right?

Julie Goodwin's Cream Horn with Mock Cream

2010-05-21T23:06:00.000+09:30

Party! Finger food....this is really good, looks impressive and absolutely easy to make. It's adapted from Our Family Table by Julie Goodwin, Australia's first Masterchef. This is Julie's mum's recipe and it is always a hit with their family.

The mock cream is very much like buttercream, albeit lighter. It is fluffy and firm because of the gelatine and cream of tartar. The cream horn is just basic puff pastry. I've used the best quality one I could find, an all butter puff pastry. It's so flaky and buttery and yummy. The only drawback probably is that you need plenty of cream horn moulds to wrap the pastry around. The recipe makes 32 but I yield 40 and only had 12 moulds. It took me a while to finish baking it in the oven. It doesn't bake long, just a 10-15 minutes and it's out but you gotta cool down the mould quick to be able to work with it again.

You pipe a strip of jam first into the horn and cover it with mock cream. I've used wild blueberry jam, homemade-custard and chocolate ganache so they look more colourful and I get variety. Julie suggest using those cheap strawberry jam that is smooth and has no large chunks of strawberries in it. I refuse to follow because I wanted top quality result. I pulse my jam in the food processor until smooth and place that in a piping bag. I make the mock cream and did the same too.

If you want something to impress, this one is good. Looks impressive but relatively easy to make. You can anytime use chantilly cream to fill instead of mock cream if you run out of time. I like serving mine cold. Only fill when about to serve.

Cream horns
(adapted from Julie Goodwin's Our Family Table, pg 110-112)

Makes 32
Prep time: 20 mins
Cooking time: 10 mins per batch

Ingredients

4 sheets frozen puff pastry
1 egg
2/3 cup strawberry jam or any other jam, custard or ganache
1 quantity mock cream (recipe below)
Icing sugar, to dust

Preheat the oven to200°C (180°C if using fan-forced oven). Line baking tray with non-stick baking paper. Remove the pastry sheets from the freezer for 5 minutes to thaw before beginning, but don't allow them to become too soft, as they will be difficult to handle. If too soft, sprinkle a little flour on both sides and rub in to prevent sticking to work surface. Cut each pastry sheet into eight strips with a pizza roller.

The following is very descriptive on how to wrap the pastry around the mould. I'd say just go by instinct making sure you cover up the tip with pastry else your filling may leak out when filled later: Take a cream horn mould (you don't need to grease the moulds!), holding the open end in your left hand if you are right-handed, or vice versa. Pick up a strip of pastry with your right hand and press it gently onto the pointed end of the horn tin, with the pastry strip hanging down on the side closest to you. Carefully turn the tin away from you as you guide the pastry around it, overlapping the pastry about 5 - 7 millimeter, until you come to the end of the strip. Don't take the pastry too close to the open end of the horn mould, as it will puff over the edge while cooking, making it difficult to remove.

Place the pastry-covered moulds on the baking trays, leaving plenty of space between them. Make sure the end of the pastry is underneath (if not, it will look like the ganache-filled cream horn you see in the pictures!), so the horn will hold its shape. Lightly beat the egg with 1 tablespoon of water and brush it over the pasty to glaze. Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until rich golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes, then carefully slide the cases off the moulds by a gentle twisting motion. Cool the horns on a wire rack. Repeat with remaining pastry.

Fill a piping bag with jam and snip off a small hole. Pipe the jam into the bottom of each horn and a stripe up the inside. Next, use a new piping bag filled with mock cream (see below for recipe) and snip a larger hole. Fill the horns with the mock cream. Arrange the horns on a serving platter and lightly sift icing sugar over them to decorate.

Mock cream

Makes approximately 1 cup
Prep time: 10 minutes
No cooking time

Ingredients

250g unsalted butter, cubed
1/3 cup (75g) caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence (I use vanilla bean paste)
2 tsp gelatine powder, sprinkled over 1/2 cup of cold water and let swell until paste-like
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Method

Combine the butter and sugar in an electric mixer. Beat on slow speed until combined, then increase speed to high and beat until light and creamy. Add the vanilla and continue to beat on high until the sugar has dissolved.You can test by rubbing some mixture between your fingers to feel if the sugar has completely dissolved. The mixture shouldn't look grainy.

When the gelatine has softened, stand the gelatine bowl in a pan of hot water and whisk with a fork until the gelatine is thoroughly dissolved. Cool to room temperature. Add one teaspoon of this mixture to the butter mixture at a time, beating constantly. Sprinkle the cream of tartar evenly into the butter mixture and continue to beat until it is creamy, light in colour and smooth in consistency.

I hope you're loving the simple idea! Sometimes, things at its simplest, purest form is the best. It's Aaron's birthday soon and I'm planning to make him a big cake! He gotten his contract and he just need to know a commencement date and rest assured, we'll be moving to Perth for good! I'm pretty excited and happy for him, albeit a little anxious since I still haven't secure a job myself.

Soybean Curd (Wobby Tau Foo Fah)

2010-05-19T10:55:00.001+09:30

This is the soybean curd recipe as promised. It is so smooth, I finally got it. Apart from the typical hot soybean curd, I did another version of chilled beancurd, set with the right amount of gelatine and Aaron really like this one so much that he asked me not to bother fidgeting and getting all mad and crazy about gypsum.

This is good and cold and very very smooth. The pictures you see here, the one with Gula Melaka Syrup is the one set with gelatine (picture below) and the one with Pandan-Ginger Syrup is set with coagulant, a mixture of gypsum, cornflour and tapioca starch (picture above). I however didn't use gypsum this time. I found Pectin from my local supermarket, the one used to make fruit jams so I use that one instead. It sets the curd beautifully. From my experience, pectin has a higher range of setting the curd compared to gypsum. I'm sorry but I give up on gypsum already.

My mum makes her beancurd using Gypsum powder and so does the lady that taught her so. I don't know if it's the weather but hers always set so beautifully. This one can't beat mum's one but this is good enough for me and Aaron really thinks the chilled beancurd anytime beats any Tau Fo Fah anytime! So I've included both for you all to try. We both personally prefer the Gula Melaka Syrup and ended up using the Pandan-Ginger Syrup to sweeten our Soy milk.

The recipe is provided by the nice woman that mum bought her soybean grinder from, let's call her Mrs. Buffalo because she is a sales person for the brand, Buffalo.

Give it a go, it's not tough at all. Gypsum can be very tricky sometimes.

Soybean Curd
(courtesy of Mrs. Buffalo)

4 cups of boiling hot soy milk
Coagulants (see below)
Room temperature sugar syrup to serve (see below)

After the 3 times of boiling the soy milk, stir the coagulant one last time and pour it into a slow cooker pot. Then pour in the hot soy milk from a height making sure you pour it over all the coagulant paste so they are finely dispersed. Cover with a tea towel and place on the lid of slow cooker (it has to be a heavy glass lid). Set it aside to coagulate for 50 minutes, do not move or relocate the slow cooker, do not peek, do not open, do not stir. Just sit there with a chair and a book and guard it. I have too many people with itchy hands in here so I have to guard it!

To serve, scoop out thin layers of the pudding and place it in a serving bowl. Drizzle over sugar syrup and serve immediately. For every time you scoop a new bowl of Tau Foo Fah, you'll notice a water layer in the pot. Just scoop away the water layer and proceed to scoop the curd like normal.

Coagulant:

1/2 tsp gypsum powder (can substitute with 3/4 tsp Pectin or GDL or Lactone)
1/2 tbsp cornflour
1/2 tbsp tapioca starch
3 tbsp water

Mix all the above together, making sure the cornflour and tapioca starch is completely dissolved. Set aside until needed.

Chilled Soybean Curd

300ml soy milk
1 tsp gelatine
Sugar syrup to serve, chilled until very cold

Dissolve the gelatine by sprinkling it over 1 tbsp of water. Set it aside to swell for 5 mins. Measure out the soy milk and place it in a milk pot and reheat gently. When it is about hot to touch, turn the heat off and pour in the gelatine paste, scrapping everything in. Whisk it to combine for a minute. Scoop off as much bubbles as possible that is produced from the vigorous stirring. Cool it down to room temperature and chill it overnight in the fridge, cover tightly with a plastic cling wrap.

To serve, scoop out thin layers of the pudding and place it in a serving bowl. Drizzle over cold sugar syrup and serve immediately.

Gula Melaka Syrup:

1/4 cup Gula Melaka, shaved and compact into measuring spoon and measure
1 tbsp brown sugar
Water, as much as you like but not too much

Bring everything to boil until all sugar is melted. Remove from heat and chill until very cold.

Pandan-Ginger Syrup:

1/4 cup raw sugar or rock sugar
2 pandan leaves, cleaned and knotted
Thumb-size ginger, peeled and smashed with the back of a knife
Wter, as much as you like but not too much

Bring everything to boil and when all is melted, let it simmer for 5mins. Remove from heat and cover to let pandan and ginger infuse the sugar syrup. Cool it down and chill until very cold.

I hope you like this post and find some information helpful to you. I hope the pictures can show you how silky smooth the Tau Foo Fah is and get you to make some for your loved ones! Whatever you do, please don't use store-bought Soy Milk for this because they just won't work.

Soy Milk

2010-05-17T23:00:00.000+09:30

Soy milk is a great alternative for vegan. One of my housemate is a vegan and once she tried my soy milk, she never bought one of those diluted soy milk from Chinatown nor supermarket anymore. Really, all they give you is sugar and water. My mum bought a soybean grinder long time ago and it was not only expensive but hard to wash with many parts to assemble and disassemble. I really pity my housekeeper back then, she does all the laundry and washings in my house and mum make soybean milk like twice a week.

Anyway, when she bought that machine, the seller, a friendly, middle-aged woman came to our house, gave my mum a demo on how to use the machine to make soybean milk and to make soybean curd (aka Tau Foo Fah) with it. Apparently, you can also extract carrot juice with it. She saved the carrot juice for drinking and used the finely shredded leftover carrots for making carrot cake, pretty impresive I would say.

So this is the proportion she has used. The downside is that the machine won't work if you put in too little water, which means you can't make a thicker soy milk if you wish. I don't have that kinda luxury. All I have is a muslin cheesecloth that Ellena sent me long time ago and a blender that Aaron's dad brought over for us from Malaysia. They have too much blenders at home from lucky draws, lucky people.

Here is the recipe that the nice woman gave mum. I tweaked it a bit since I like it more concentrated but I like the steps she use because it really produce a very very smooth soy milk.

Soy Milk
(makes approximately 4 cups of soy milk)

150g whole organic soy bean
4 cups of water

Measure out the soybean and rinse it well under cold tap water. Soak it in plenty of cold tap water overnight. The following day, use your hands and rub the soybean very well to remove the husk or rather a think membrane shell that is wrapping each and every soy bean. Rub it well and place it under running tap water, the husk will float to the top. Discard them and repeat until you get no more husk from rubbing the soybeans. Apparently the husk will give it a slight bitter after taste, not obvious but when she made two batches of husked and unhusked, it was obvious.

Place all the soybean in a blender or a food processor. Add in 4 cups of clean water and blend them until you get a fine slurry or rather, paste. Using a large muslin cloth or coffee filter, strain the slurry and extract as much soy milk as possible. The leftover solids from the extraction is called Okara. You can choose to discard them or put them to good use. I've tried making bread with them but no, they didn't taste good to me. They look like almond meal to me so I use them to make a dense flourless chocolate cake, substituted almond meal with Okara. Not a bad move, the Lindt's chocolate gives good flavour but I still would have preferred having almond fragrance in my torte. Okara is very bland in my opinion.

Sieve (into a spouted jug or bowl) all the extracted soy milk using a clean muslin once more. Remove as much foam as possible with a metal spoon. Strain once more into a milk pot large enough to hold all the milk. Heat it over medium low heat and stir often. It will boil over the very minute you're not looking. You can microwave it first but I just don't quite lie the idea of nuking everything sometimes. It's just me, I felt the protein and nutrients in the soy milk would be affected if you nuke it. Make sure you have a pot larger than the quantity of milk in there so it doesn't boil over and spill. When it reaches the first boil, turn off the heat and remove as much foam as possible from the surface. Turn the heat back on and when it boil, skim the surface again like previous. Do it one more time and you're done. If you don't boil it three times, some bad enzymes in there will cause the soy milk to turn rancid faster. The whole process should take longer than 10minutes because 10 minutes is when the flavour of the soy milk is fully developed and the raw smell/taste is completely gone.

Make Longan Tofu/Jelly/Pudding or Soybean Curd with it. For vegan, drink it in place of milk, sweetened with sugar syrup and use it in place of whole milk when baking.

I just made soybean curd with this batch of soy milk. It's still coagulating but it looks like it's working this time after my previous failed attempt. It wasn't a failed attempt but I didn't quite get it yet. I hope this time, I'm there!

I told Aaron he can't drink soy milk as much as me because study has shown that men who consume soy milk on a daily basis has a higher chances of having low concentration of sperm in later life. He didn't believe me! Isn't it pathetic to have only one picture in the whole post. I make 4 cups of soy milk, coagulated 2 cups and sweetend the remaining 2 cups and simply took a shot. Then I realise it was kinda dark. I went off to get a reflector and when I'm back, the soy milk, they're gone! I hate Aaron sometimes because he knows photo means a lot to me and how it speaks a thousand words.

Anyway, I promise more shots for my Tau Foo Fah!

Wish me luck!

Chai Panna Cotta

2010-05-15T13:51:00.010+09:30

Perhaps a break from bread would be good before we continue our journey back to yeast and kneading. This one is easy and makes enough to serve 2 or manybe 3 people as an after-meal dessert. I've used all parts heavy cream so it's pretty rich and sinful, not too good for the waistline but I couldn't resist not eating sweet stuffs after a savoury meal. However, this is not too sweet and has a beautiful hint of spice.

I also would like to share how I unmoulded my Panna Cotta. Note this only works with panna cotta that comes with a sugar syrup to serve along. If it doesn't comes with a syrup to serve along, well then tweak it and reduce the sugar in the Panna Cotta and make a syrup to go with it. Because, if you have discovered what I'm about to tell you, you will never see Panna Cotta the same way again and unmoulding using hot water would be a fuss for you, simply because this is too easy!

The trick starts with using the right cup to hold your Panna Cotta. Use plastic cups, trust me. Any other cups will work too but plastic cup greatly ease the removals of these babies. Look at the picture above. You can serve it in its cup but it doesn't look that elegant compared to the first picture isn't it? There wasn't much to dress up because Panna Cotta simply speaks for itself. Luscious, beautiful wobbly little thing.

Having said that, if you also notice, many recipes that serve Panna Cotta in its mould often ask you to 'pour the syrup over only upon serving'. The reason is that the sugar syrup will soon find its way down the sides of the Panna Cotta and ingeniously loosen up the sides and edges for you. No thin, warm and wet knife, no soaking in hot water and count 1 to 10 required. So pour the cooled syrup (not the slightest warm is allowed!) over the Panna Cotta and let it sit for 5 minutes or even less.

Have a serving plate and place it over the Panna Cotta. Flip it upside down in one quick motion and wiggle it around. Don't worry about the Panna Cotta, it will not break apart, the recipe I'm about to provide makes the best texture Panna Cotta for me. Hold the plastic cup and press tt around, with your thumb and other fingers moving it in a circular motion. The Panna Cotta will just plop out onto the plate beautifully and the syrup acts as a lubricant and allows you to position your Panna Cotta at the centre.

Easy nifty little trick? Well of course, if you already know so, well, thanks for dropping by anyway :)

Chai Panna Cotta
(serves 2 or 3)

2/3 cup heavy cream or double cream
2 Chai Tea Bags (don't use Lipton, use those good stuffs, I'll take a picture of mine next time)
1 cup of spring water, not reboiled water from your electric kettle
2 tbsp castor sugar
2 tsp gelatine powder

Place 3 tbsp of the spring water (not hot) in a shallow plate. Sprinkle over the 2 tsp gelatine and let it swell for 5 minutes.

Combine the Chai tea leaves and remaining spring water in a small milk pot. Bring it to a boil and turn off the heat. Infuse for a couple of minutes and add in the sugar. Stir until dissolved turn off the heat. Sprinkle over the gelatine and whisk a minute until it has completely dissolved. Stir in the double cream and whisk to combine very well. Pour it into 2 or 3 tall plastic cups (those that you use for parties would do) and chill it in the fridge until set. Generally, overnight is the best since that will make sure your gelatine will not set/gel any further. I place it in a dessert fridge in my room so it doens't take on my leftover curry smell or my durian cheesecake smell. If you have to, cool it down completely, and cover with a plastic wrap before lacing it back in the fridge again to set.

Spiced Syrup
1 star anise
1 cardamom pod, bruised
2 tbsp sugar
5 tbsp water

Make a syrup with all the above and infuse a while to let the star anise and cardamom pod flavoured the syrup. Coll and chill it in the fridge until cold. If too thick, thin it down with water. To unmould, pour the syrup evenly over the plastic cups and let it stand for a couple of minutes. When all syrup has settled to the bottom of the cup, flip it onto a serving plate and wiggle until it plop out gently.

Serve immediately or chill in fridge until ready to serve.

Note:

I'm pretty fussy about my Chai. Chai simply means tea and I like using store bought springwater for it. Water boiled over and over again simply will not do because the bond between hydrogen and oxygen is broken. It makes for a very dull tasting tea to my palate. I also always open up the Chai Tea Bags and you'll be wondering the whole point of getting tea bags is so you save the hassle of having to strain it. But tea leaves will not release its full flavour if bounded by a muslin bag, not even if you press it well against the side of you cup. Any simmering longer than 5 minutes will make it bitter so don't think, the longer the infusion, the better. It doesn't work with Chai and Matcha. I feel all that makes a difference because I am fussy as I've said. I wouldn't call myself the tea connoisseur but this is what I drink. Feel free to use what you like, say use whatever water you want and keep the teabags intact.

Butter Coconut Layer Bun

2010-05-12T22:44:00.001+09:30

I made buns again yesterday. There is something just very soothing and magical about kneading dough. I don't need and don't want a breadmaker, I love kneading. It's indescribable but I just love the process. I love how I could feel the dough and know when it is done. I bought a copy of bread recipe book during my last trip back to Malaysia. It's one of those typical Asian recipe books that I'm sure Pei Lin will be put off! But I am so confident in making bread that I can sacrifice the detail recipe steps in return of the various ways of making buns, the different filling and the cheap quality of step-by-step photo. At least they are clear and tells me what to do, good enough for me. And really, these are what Aaron and I both really like. He doesn't like those ciabatta and foccacia. He just wants typical Asian breads all the time. I've made enough breads by hand to be able to do it blindly.

Back to this book, I like how they promote homemade breads and healthy eating at the same time since all the recipes uses no preservative and no bread improver. This is the first recipe I tried ever since having this book for a month or so. I like it, it's sinful and guilty so you probably wanna just make 4 and nothing more and the buns are large anyway, you can have enough to share around since I'm pretty weight cautious as of lately.

Butter Coconut Layer Bun (makes 4 buns)
(adapted from Baked & Steamed Bun by Daniel Choong)

For the buns:
4 portions of basic sweet bun dough, divided into 55g each

Butter-Coconut Filling
100g dessicated coconut
100g butter, cold and chopped
1 large egg
115g castor sugar (I just use 1/2 cup)
90g evaporated milk

Place all in a food processor and pulse until all combined. Roughly form into 4 parts and chill or freeze. When firm, work quickly in between palms and roll it into a ball and chill again until needed. It is a lot easier to wrap in the filling when it is frozen or very very cold.

Take a piece of the bread dough and flatten it out. Place a ball of filling at the centre and seal it up well. Rest it for 5 minutes. Flatten the dough again, taking care not to leak any filling out at this stage. When you have obtained a fairly thin round disc, fold it in half once. Fold the semicircle once more so that it looks like a large, fat love letter. With a sharp knife, cut it in half. Turn up the bun to expose the filling. Gather them together and roll them up with a pandan leave.

Note that you are supposed to roll them up fairly tight to get a nice shape. The one shown in the picture is after proving for 30minutes and I have obviously not rolled the pandan leaf tight enough. If you roll it tightly, you'll get a sort of beautiful fan shape, not quite like mine.

Repeat for the remaining dough and filling to get 4 pieces of bun. Place the bun on a greased tray and let it double in size in a warm spot. Upon baking, brush them with evaporated milk. Be gentle and treat them like new born babies, they look so all puffed up and gorgeous....

Sprinkle a generous amount of dessicated coconut on top of the bun. Sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinke...

Bake them for 10-15 minutes or until a golden brown in a 190°C preheated hot oven.

Done! There's nothing really tough here and I'm really just sharing the recipe for the filling. I got a couple of emails after posting my Little Char Siew Buns requesting for a post just on basic sweet bun dough recipe and how to knead since some of them don't own a breadmaker too. Sorry but I don't know when I might have time for a post like that. I'll try though, no assurance.

For now, for those experts and amatuer bakers, try this butter coconut layer bun. It's yummy and beautiful!

This post have been submitted to Yeastspotting, a weekly bread showcase organized by Susan of Wild Yeast.

Tuna Heart Bun for Mother's Day!

2010-05-07T17:56:00.010+09:30

I made this yesterday and they are still very soft now. It's yummy, very soft and savoury to my liking. Obviously, Mother's Day is tomorrow and I have shaped them all into neat, pretty little heart shape buns just for the occasions! Even though my mother is not here with me, she is always in my heart so she is with me virtually to enjoy these buns :)

I've adapted the topping recipe from Baked & Steamed Bun by Daniel Choong and I must say it's a pretty good book. It's got both steam and baked buns and breads recipe, they all contain no preservatives and no bread improver, sorta like promoting healthy eating. There are many ways to making and shaping buns and also different topping or filling to pair with.

As for the bun, I use typical sweet bun dough. It is the shaping method that I would like to share. I once saw this way of shaping from a website but unfortunately, the link is not working anymore. I like how easy it is and most importantly, the heart shape is very obvious even upon rising and baking. Aaron and I both love this a lot so do give it a try.

Tuna Heart Bun (makes 8)

For the buns:
8 portions of basic sweet bun dough, divided into 75g each

Roll them into longish shape and have both ends slightly tapered. Make a long slit 3/4 way through the dough vertically. Open them up like a 'V' shape and fold the 2 ends down towards the centre, just like shown in the step-by-step picture. Let them rise and double in size. Glaze them with egg wash and divide the filling among the buns.

For the filling or topping: Makes enough for 8 buns

150g tuna (I use one whole can of John West Tuna 185g)
1/2 tbsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt
Good grind of black pepper
40g mayonnaise
1/2 dried parsley flakes

Mix everything till well combined and smear on top of bun or use as filling. Sprinkle with more dried parsley, a sprinkle of sugar and a dash of Parmesan Cheese on each buns.

This is dedicated to all mothers in the world. Here's wishing you all a very happy Mother's Day and stay young!!! I have a picture of my mum here and I think she looks gorgeous for a 48-years-old woman, what do you think?

And my dad....I love him. He is the coolest dad ever, kinda like my best buddy. He's 53 and goes island hopping all over Malaysia to scuba dive. Now how cool is that? I don't know any other dads that scuba dive, dad just show the world age is not a limit to things you wanna do in life. Go for it, that's what he always tells me. Dad's pretty outdoor, he goes jungle trekking thrice a week and plays badminton thrice a week too. He fishes sometimes, so yeah.... I'm closer to dad so I can't help talking about dad here despite Mother's Day. Mum's pretty boring, she goes shopping all day and night and socializing and meeting people, can be quite sickening sometimes and seriously, my parents almost died of boredom here in Adelaide last week.

Okay, abrupt ending. Gotta go prepare and cook up lots of stuffs. We're hosting a lunch tomorrow in our house. Pinky promise I'll get the pictures before our guests dig in!

Spinach, Pecorino and Tomato Quiche

2010-05-02T15:58:00.000+09:30

As of now, parents are all back in Malaysia. I am so tied down with interviews. I have a few final ones but I'd keep it to myself until I get the job. I cannot take another disappointment really. After this post, I don't know if I will be posting much until I settled down. I receive all the comments, some asking for easy to cook recipes, some hoping I will be fine. I'm not all over the rejection yet but I will. Right now, I just wanna focus on what's in front of me and food. Didn't get to cook much when parents were down. So this was done sometime back, in fact a day right after Elin posted hers up.

I was inspired by Elin who makes real good pies and quiche. Her spinach quiche got me hooked ever since I tried making them once. I make quiche for lunch and finish half the quiche myself, averagely once every fortnight. At that kind of rate of quiche consumption, if I use Elin's Famous Cheese Crust, I'd be dead by now. Dead from overindulging. Seriously, I can understand why Elin always rave about the cheese crust pastry. How can something not be nice when it has so much cheese in it and spells C-A-L-O-RI-E-S????

This is my low fat version. A pastry case I make often and eat with no guilt. I use water to bind it rather than cheese or fat (lard/butter/shortening etc). It has a lower fat content compared to any other pastry you can find out there. And the wholemeal flour gives it a healthy texture too. I have also added cherry tomatoes (sometimes I use grape tomatoes too!) upon baking. It's not exactly very healthy since it call for an amount of cheese in there and I use Pecorino, how's that low fat??? But because I love Pecorino so much, I'm willing to pull down the fat content in the pastry. You can use Mozzarella but lemme tell you, it's got high fat content too unless you buy fresh cheese. Generally, fresh cheeses have lower fat content.

I once tried to clear up my fridge and practically anything edible goes into the quiche. I love how after baking, the cherry tomatoes releases its natural juices. Remove the stringy bits from the skin and pop the whole thing in your mouth. Very little pulp and a whole goodness of tomato juice bursting into flavour in your mouth. That's what I call orgasm! Ever since then, I always pop cherry tomatoes in my quiche. As for cheese, I sometimes use feta when I'm in crave of Spanakopit a. Most other times, I use Pecorino, just because I like how it taste. You can use Mozarella or a mixture of it with Parmesan, anything you like. Just go according to your feeling and your fridge's leftover. Bake it till it's set and you have a warm and hearty meal.

Low fat pastry

1/2 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 tsp sugar
Pinch of salt
2.5 tbsp shortening/butter
2 tbsp water or more to bind

Place all ingredients above except water in a food processor and pulse until resemble breadcrumbs. Pour out into a large mixing bowl. Dribble in water and toss well. Pour into a 7-8 inch tart tin and press to even out really well. The pastry makes just enough for a very very thin layer to line the tart so be patient and press it real thin. Spray the lined tart tin with olive oil spray and place a sheet of foil over it. Weight it down with rice or commercial pie weights and bake for 10minutes in a preheated oven 200°C. Remove the weight and foil and further bake another 5 minutes or more to dry and brown the base further.

Quiche Filling

2 eggs
2 tbsp cream (I used lite cream, low percentage of fat)
A pack of triple washed baby spinach (100g)
90g Pecorino Cheese, finely chopped and crumbled
Enough cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes (optional)

Wilt the baby spinach in hot water. It doesn't take long, just approximately 4 minutes and drain it in a colander. Squeeze out the excess water and chop it into smaller pieces with a sharp knife. Beat the eggs and cream together and add in the chopped spinach and crumbled Pecorino. Mix well and pour into prepared tin. Place cherry tomatoes all over the surface of the quiche.

Bake it for 30 minutes, 200°C. Remove it from the oven and place it under the griller for 5 minutes if the tomatoes aren't roasted well enough.

Yummy, I love quiche.

Anzac Day: Aussie Pavlova

2010-04-24T21:20:00.001+09:30

Pavlova is native to Australasian, mainly Australians and New Zealanders. Named after a Russian ballerina, a properly done pavlova has a crisp crust when tapped with the back of a spoon around it. When sliced, you can hear the heavenly sound of crackling crust followed by a soft, pillowy feeling when you slice through the middle. It is baked at low temperature and allowed to cool in the oven until it is ready to be served. A little crack on the surface is normal and it will all soon be covered with cream so it is absolutely normal to get cracks. Usually served with generous amount of chantilly cream and loads of summer fruit, it is no surprise nor wonder why Pavlova remains Aussie's favourite till today. Those sold outside are generally too sweet for my liking. When I make it at home, I cut down the sugar a bit and add a pinch of salt to take away the sweetness as I personally don't favour fruits that are too tart to minus back the sweetness of the Pavlova.

MasterChef new season is back and in conjunction with Anzac Day today, I couldn't resist making Donna Hay's Pavlova to commemorate and respect Anzac Day. Some other typical Aussie food include lamington, meat pies, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, Tim Tam and so forth. I've kept this simple by decorating it with seasonal fruits. I've flavoured the chantilly cream with vanilla bean and a good splash of Vanilla Vodka as well. Chantilly cream is basically whipped cream with small amount of sugar in it. The low baking temperature puffs up the Pavlova while the long cooking time dries it out to give it a crispy shell. If you rush it and bake it at a temperature too high, sugar will separate and ooze out like sap. It won't work. Pavlova can be stored, plain by itself for up to 5 days in an airtight container.

Try it and you will be hooked. We absolutely love it. We ate it and have our mouth gawked open for more and more of these just like the baby below. We never seem to get enough, it's simply irresistable! I think if baby is old enough to eat, he will have a sweet tooth too! (Note: It's not my baby, read this)

Donna Hay has certainly create a name for herself. Her pavlova recipe can be obtained on her website or through MasterChef page.

Happy Anzac Day and have fun during the weekend!

How to coddle egg

2010-04-18T18:49:00.003+09:30

As you are reading this, I'm back from Perth and am busy with my graduation ceremony which is tomorrow. My parents are here in Down Under with me and we'll have some great fun. If you're wondering about the interview, no I didn't get the field engineer job. Was pretty unhappy actually but I'm happy too. Did I mention Aaron was shortlisted for the same company and he got the job. Rosalind, if you're wondering which company, it's Baker Hughes. I'm still happy for myself since I was one of the 20 candidates screened from hundreds of applications. And I have a handful of other interviews (Santos, Shell, Mars Australia etc.) waiting for me telling me I've been shortlisted and some haven't get back to me yet since the application date is still open. Overall, it's really not that bad. I'm not doomed, I must stay positive but really can't deny the fact that I am still a little unhappy. It was a tough 2 days. Intensive, challenging, draining and rewarding practically sums it all up. I guess we'll be relocating to Perth for good very soon since most of our jobs require us to be based in Perth.

I know, I know.....yet another egg post. I told you, I really love my eggs. Gimme salt and pepper, bread and butter and one egg and I can do wonders. This is called coddled egg. I don't have an egg coddler but I've successfully coddled it my way. Coddled egg is basically eggs cooked just below boiling point for a short while so the whites will hold together. The yolk should be slightly thickened and flowy and whites completely set. It is peelable but wobbly.

There, I save you tonnes of scrolling. This is how I do it:

Coddled Egg

Bring a pot of water to boil making sure it is enough to completely submerge an egg completely. When boiling, gently lower in the egg (or eggs) and set your timer to 3 minutes and 30 seconds for a small egg and 4 minutes in my case for an extra large egg. Once time is up, turn off the heat and lift it out with a tea strainer and run it under the cold water tap. Break the shells gently all over on the table. I generally will start breaking my coddled egg from the blunt end of the egg since there is a large air pocket trapped in there. Chances are you will not break it so easily.

You know how when you are involved in accident, say you hit the car in front of you. The front of your car is analogous to the air pocket. It hits the car in front and start absorbing all the energy and when it reaches you (you are analogous to the coddled egg in this case), you experience the least impact possible.

Sorry...ignore me. No one wants to know the engineering of eggs. Just start tapping it from the blunt end, less fragile basically. When you are done tapping it all over, submerge it in the ice water while you start toasting and buttering your bread. When done, peel the eggs. The shells should come off nicely. Warm it back in the pot of water and wipe it with a kitchen towel. Yes, I always wipe my eggs so they don't turn my bread into soggy squares.

Cut in the eggs and let the yolk flow out like magma. Salt and pepper the yolk and smear the yolk evenly on the bread like your usual spread. Briefly cut through the soft whites and smear it around the bread.

That's it, serve. You can also use coddled eggs to top off your Caesar Salad and soups.

Easy?

Fried Custard Squares

2010-04-13T22:19:00.000+09:30

I'm off in Perth now as you are reading this. I think I deserve a good holiday and as a bonus, I'm going to Perth for a job interview too!!! It's gonna be tough and it's gonna be a two days assessment. I'm happy because everything is going my way now and I've had a couple of interviews before so I'm all ready and prepared. So, basically what you are seeing here, it's me trying to clear off backlogs.

This is adapted from Tessa Kiros. I really like her a lot. This is the sort of thing I ate when I was young but it wasn't called by such fancy name. It's got a lot of flour to bind it together so you're really eating yummilicious cooked flour custard. I like it with cinnamon sugar or just plain sugar. Give it a go, I'm sure kids will love these sorta thing but they only taste yummy when fried hot off the pan. I tried keeping them warm but they somehow will turn soggy. I still made one recipe and eat as it comes out of the pan. It's really utterly amazing....

Fried Custard Squares

(adapted from Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros)

3 cups milk
1 long strip of lemon rind, pith removed
1 tsp vanilla extract (I use vanilla bean paste)
3 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup plus 1/4 cup plain flour, sifted
5.5 tbsp butter
Extra plain flour to coat
Superfine vanilla sugar to serve

Put the milk in a saucepan and add the lemon rind and vanilla. Bring just to a boil. Meanwhile, whip 2 eggs in a bowl until they are creamy, then whisk in the sugar. Add the flour and whisk to a smooth cream. Just as the milk comes to a rolling boil, whisk a ladleful into the eggs. Add another ladleful or two, whisking continuously to prevent the eggs from scrambling.

Spoon it all back into the milk pan and put over the lowest heat, whisking all the time. It will thicken quickly so you may have to remove the pan from heat for a minute and whisk vigorously until it is smooth. Put back on the heat for a few minutes to cook the flour, whisking until it is completely smooth and very thick.

Lightly grease a 6.5 inch by 11 inch baking pan and spoon the custard into the pan, smoothing the surface with a spatula. Let it cool and set completely (I chill mine in the fridge and then the freezer. I like working with it when it's firm). Turn it out on a large plate and cut into 2 inch squares.

Break the last egg into a small flat plate and scatter some flour on another plate. Melt 2 to 3 tbsp butter in a nonstick pan over medium low heat. Working in batches, dip squares of custard in the egg and then the flour to coat it lightly. Dust off excess and shallow fry the squares in the butter until golden on both sides, turning them gently. Add blobs of butter along the way to prevent burning.

Lift the squares out onto paper towels to drain. Serve warm, sprinkled with some vanilla sugar.

Makes 15 (heck, I say way more than that!)

Vanilla Vodka Jellies with Chantilly Cream

2010-04-08T18:58:00.005+09:30

Vanilla is a favourite spice, lending itself to elegant treats. From silken panna cotta to plain poached fruit, vanilla just adds a delicate touch to desserts Here, it is used to flavour a delightfully wobbly jellies. All parts vodka and all parts vanilla, this jelly will make you tipsy like an angel.

It's just after Easter and it's all been about the food for me. We had so many rounds of chocolatey desserts, so many chocolate bunnies and Easter eggs, parties after parties, potlucks after potlucks and many rounds of drinking games; it's all been about the food throughout the long weekend for me. I figured something not chocolatey would be good but I wanted something purely for adult and it's gotta be light too since we have this as an after heavy meal dessert. This is adapted from Donna Hay Magazine, Issue 48 in her special Christmas Edition. I like this a lot and I figured you might too if you like Vodka like me. Yes, I admit. I could be a heavy drinker sometimes, but not alcoholics addict.

Vanilla & Vodka Jellies
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
1/4 cup vanilla castor sugar
1/2 cup water
1 tsp powdered gelatine
1/3 cup Absolut Vanilla Vodka
1/4 cup pure cranberry juice
12 strawberries, hulled and thinly sliced

Place the gelatine powder in a small bowl with 1 tbsp cold water and let it sit to soak up the water. Place the vanilla (including the pod as well), sugar and water in a small saucepan. Bring it to boil over high heat and stir until sugar is dissolved. Let it cook for 2 to 3 minutes until slightly syrupy. Add the gelatine paste to the mixture and stir to dissolve. Cool completely and stir in the vodka and cranberry juice. Arrange the sliced berries in the base of 4 champagne glasses (1 cup capacity) and carefully pour over the jellies until just covering the berries.Rerigerate for 4 hours until set.

Chantilly Cream
1/2 cup double cream
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
1 tbsp icing sugar, passed through a tea strainer
1 tbsp Absolut Vanilla Vodka

Reserve the pod to make vanilla sugar. Place everything else into a chilled bowl and whisk until soft peaks form. Dollop over jellies and serve.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Lava Cake for Easter!

2010-04-02T16:55:00.002+10:30

I feel like having comfort food for Easter! And these chocolate lava cake fits the bill. I have to say this and I'm not exaggerating, these are life changing lava cakes. I will not look at lava cakes the same way anymore.

When I say comfort food, I really meant to have it served right in their mould. You really don't have to invert it onto a plate if you don't want to, though it does look way more gorgeous that way. But this is really what I eat. I do like photographing food but not to the extend where I sacrifice my comfort food for photo. For me, comfort food is something you can dig in with a spoon and it comes in a bowl or something that must surround it. I like digging in stuffs. Gives me security rather than having it inverted out. I know, I have issues.

The inverted lava cake photos were made sometime back, when I was all in the mood to dress up and look beautiful. And when I need to serve it to my guests. But to celebrate Easter dinner with my housemates, I serve it the comfort food way!

And did I mention I think that cake looks gorgeous? Unlike other cakes that's drenched with icing sugar and ice cream to make photos look good, mine is simply dusted with real good cacao and still heavenly and not cloyingly sweet even when eating it with unsweetened whipped cream. I like it, the photos are a good reflection of what I really eat, albeit a little colder! Dig in when it's warm.

Lava Cakes are a good mistake. A chef once underbaked a chocolate cake once and needed to serve it up to the king immediately. He presented them as molten lava cake and king was really impressed. If you have issues with raw eggs and don't like the idea of eating undercooked batter, click here for a lava cake I did previously. This one uses a ganache ball as filling and even if you overbaked them, you still get flowy magma. Just use pasteurized eggs and make these! They are yummy!

These are adapted from Pioneer Woman, and she adapted it from Brandielle from Tasty Kitchen. I half the recipe and yield four little rich lava cakes. My moulds were really small, I use one of the Portuguese egg tart mould. And I measured, it's 5 tbsp (75ml) capacity per each little cup. They are rich so I made them small. Things just taste yummier when they come in small servings. And can I say, use real good chocolates please because the lava will taste just exactly like the chocolates that you use. I use Lindt's, 85% cocoa content. So yummy....so heavenly!!!!

Molten Chocolate Lava Cake
(makes 4 real small cake using 5 tbsp capacity moulds)

Nuke 60g bittersweet chocolates and 55g butter in the microwave on high. I did mine for 45seconds, both butter and chocolates chopped up into pieces. Grab a whisk and whisk the chocolate into submission. It will look as if it will not blend in with the butter at first but soon enough, everything has to give way to chocolates.

Throw in 60g sifted pure icing sugar and whisk to combine. Crack in 1 egg and 1 extra yolk and whisk to combine again. Finally throw in 3 tbsp plain flour and whisk until very well combined. Did I mention I didn't have plain flour so I used self raising flour instead? It doesn't matter, just don't use wholemeal flour and that sorta thing.

Grease your moulds with BUTTER. Don't use vegetable oil, it's Easter and everyone should indulge. Generously grease them if you want to do the fancy serving way. Pour into moulds, trying not to get to the sides of the mould else inverting might be an issue.

Bake them in a preheated oven of 220°C for 13 minutes. Stand them for a minute and eat them up. Serve with large mound of unsweetened whipped cream alongside and more cacao powder if desired.

For the cream, I whipped up 1 cup of double cream with 1 tbsp of vanilla castor sugar until it reaches firm peak. Love the calories. It surprises me sometimes how special cream is. The more you add, the lighter it gets. And the calories in it is just inversely proportional to the lightness.

This is how I like mine. I dollop whipped cream over it and eat it together. Do it because you're worth it. I'd rather go to hell just to eat this devilish little cake everyday! Seriously, these are life-changing. My life can never be the same anymore.

Happy Easter everyone!

And before I sign off, here is an awards that have been given to me by Anncoo of Anncoo's Hobby and Tracie of Bitter Sweet Flavour. Thank you so much for thinking I am worth it, I am so flattered and seriously touched.

And as always, I can be very disappointing sometimes, I do know if you read here, here or here. I think I'll make this a leaf node in the tags spanning across the blogosphere. In a quick 5 mins Google, it looks like most bloggers that I have known and those that I have not already known have already been tagged, and I'm not going to spread the contagion outside the organization further :)

Little Char Siew Buns

2010-03-29T16:48:00.003+10:30

I told you we both really love buns and breads. Aaron likes savoury stuffs. I made some Char Siew and Wanton Noodle sometime back. I hate it because I can never seem to have any leftover Char Siew because no matter how much I make, they just disappear. I really hate Aaron sometimes. I told him to leave some for me to experiment with baked buns and steamed baos. But his reasoning was my cooking, they are always too yummy and he couldn't stop himself from finishing it. I hate him because he is such a sweet talker and I cannot deny the fact that I was smiling away sheepishly every time he cleans up his plate. Anyhow, I manage to make this batch of baked buns with Char Siew that I've hide from Aaron in advance.

I love Agnes Chang. Aggie calls these 'Sweet Little Roasted Meat Buns'. They are small, the usual ones you get from Dim Sum Restaurant that comes with 3 little buns in a plate. I love how faux looking these buns are. They are glazed with egg wash, sent to the oven and brushed with melted salted butter again to give it the shine. When you eat them warm, you can taste through the salted butter followed by the warm soft bread before reaching the goodness yummy and moist filling. I love the saltiness the butter gave to the bun. I think the filling would be really good for steamed baos too though I've not tried making Steamed Char Siew Baos as of now.

Sweet Little Roasted Meat Buns
(makes 4 dozens of little buns, you probably can fit 3 in your palm at one go)

Prepare a batch of basic sweet bun dough. After the first proving, divide dough into 20gm portion each and shape them into ball. Rest them, covered with a damp tea towel for 15 minutes to relax the gluten. Wrap them up with 1 tsp heaped of the Char Siew filling (recipe below) and seal tightly. Arrange them onto greased baking tray, approximately 3cm apart. Spray with water and let them rise until double in bulk in a warm spot.

Glaze with egg wash (1 egg, lightly beaten with a pinch of salt) and bake in a preheated oven of 200°C for 8-10 minutes, until cooked or golden brown. Remove them from the oven and immediately brush them with melted butter to give them the shiny coating. Leave to cool or warm before serving.

Filling:

1 tbsp oil
2 tbsp choppeed shallots
300g Char Siew, diced into little cubes

Sauce: Combined in a bowl

1/2 tbsp light soya sauce
1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp dark soya sauce
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1/4 cup of water
1/2 tbsp plain flour
1/2 tbsp cornflour

Heat up the oil and sautee chopped shallots until fragrant and golden brown. Pour in the sauce and stir and bring to boil until it thickens. Add in Char Siew and mix well to coat with sauce. Dish it up and cool it completely before using. I chilled mine in the fridge overnight for easy wrapping and to allow flavour to develop.

They are so good and disappear real quick when served as finger food for cocktail parties. You can also make bigger ones if you don't like making them small but I like anything in mini form, they are so cute though it did took me a while to wrap up 50 buns with a teaspoon of filling each. My fingers are aching...

And before I sign off, I'll be submitting this recipe to Yeastspotting and also, here are awards that have been given to me by Chantal of Flirting With Flour. Don't you just love blog names like that??? Thank you so much for thinking I am worth all these, I am so flattered and seriously touched. I hope you will try out the Steamed Banana Muffins asap and lemme know! And as always, I can be very disappointing sometimes, I do know if you read here, here or here.

Chantal, I think I'll make this a leaf node in the tags spanning across the blogosphere. In a quick 5 mins Google, it looks like most bloggers that I have known and those that I have not already known have already been tagged, and I'm not going to spread the contagion outside the organization further :)

Good day everyone!

Poached Egg

2010-03-24T13:39:00.002+10:30

Poached egg. Now how more precise can the title be? We all have seen various poached eggs flooding the internet, poached egg with plastic wrap, poached egg the Julia Child's way, plain all natural poached egg with Gordon Ramsey, poaching eggs with vinegar and etc. I like the vinegar method thingy and it works but I have to admit I really dislike the aftertaste it gives my egg, especially when I'm just eating it over buttered toast with salt and pepper. I wouldn't mind vinegar-ed egg if I'm eating say Benedicts or having a vinegar-ed egg floating in my creamy soup. And that cannot be white vinegar (Ewww.....), it's gotta be either red or white wine vinegar. Just love those stuffs in my salads!

Poaching really means cooking in water. There is no need for fat/oil/butter etc. However, many modern egg poachers actually cooks the egg by suspending it over steam. I have an egg poacher at home, it's really useful and I have to disagree with people saying buying one would have it collect dust at the back of your shelves. I use it almost every morning. In fact, my breakfast every morning must consist of eggs. Don't believe me? Click to see what I've done with eggs. In most occasion, all I really need is bread, butter, egg, salt and pepper. And because of its versatility, it can be cooked so many ways! However, now that I'm away from home, I resort to this method.

I did a tutorial on how I did my poached eggs. I like my method. You might say it's not an exact poached egg but modern egg poacher all works the same way. I'm saving you dollars here! So, here we go. I combined the pictures, save you some hassle of scrolling a gazillion times. You're very welcome! The above shot: Grab a silicone muffin cups. I got mine for AUD1 for 12pcs from Target on boxing day. Spray canola oil into the muffin liner. Obviously one muffin cup will hold just one egg. Mine's really small, I like it! Use canola oil though it's silicone. The last thing you want is to have yolks running everywhere when you're trying to flip it out onto your bread. Also, canola oil is odourless, bonus! Crack in the egg. The white floating bits you see in the last picture above, they're canola oil. Don't mind them.

Next, bread. You can choose to do it when your egg is poaching but I like doing it now. I poach my eggs pretty quickly and 3 minutes isn't enough for me to toast, butter and cut them. And I di djust that in the above picture. Notice how I cut a finger off the bread and butter all of them. I like torturing my poached egg with the finger.... I can be really mean sometimes. Before you start all that bread and butter thingy, boil water in a pan. You don't wanna get them rolling boil (see the pic). When they're boiling, turn the heat down so the water is just simmering (see pic again).

Gently lower the egg in silicone cup into the water and COVER IT (not shown in pic). Time it for exactly 3 minutes for an ultra runny yolk, 4 minutes for a yolk that hardens around the edges and 5 minutes for a perfectly cooked yolk (why bother poaching really ??? Just hard boiled them!). 3 minutes and 30 seconds is the best time. Yolks are runny, whites are perfectly set and it takes on the shape of the silicone mould so well! Fish it out with a ladle when time is up. I don't usually get water on my eggs but just in case if yours did, gently tip the silicone cup over to let the water loose or dab dry with a kitchen paper. You don't want soggy toast.

There we have it. Flip the poached egg over onto your toast and torture it with the finger. Before you do that, crack some pepper on top generously. I didn't use salt. I used a salted butter so that was good enough for me. Either you like it or not, I hope you do try it. I can easily make plenty with this method and have no cracks or failed poached eggs when I am serving an army. They look beautiful too, admit it!

Matcha Macarons with Goma Filling

2010-03-20T20:38:00.011+10:30

Macarons are not macaroons. Macaroons are coconut mounds binded with sugar and egg whites whereas macarons are French cookies. No, I can't find the perfect thesaurus for it. To call French macarons as cookies is demeaning it. It is much more than that.

This is my very first attempt and it'll probably be my last one.... Who would have though the exclusion of 'o' makes a hell of a difference and torture in terms of steps and precision? This batch of macarons are what I considered a success for my virgin attempt, minus the fact that I undermixed it a little, added a tad too much egg white, baked it a little too long and overfilled it a little.

I know, I know. You're probably wondering how on earth can I call these fugly looking macarons with unwanted pointy perks perfecto but they are, at least for me. The flavour was outstanding, mingled so well with the filling and what a joy it was to eat them together. And all my bakes, any one of them are all perfect to me because I thoroughly enjoy the process of making them. I love the weighing, wiping mess, getting flour all over myself and popping them into the oven.

And this batch of Matcha macarons, they're the same. I didn't get the nice shade of green I wanted because I overbaked them a little. I was all tense up with the importance of macaronage I undermixed them a little. It was only until I piped them I realise, the peaks stayed, kinda like meringue. I must have added too much egg whites....

Anyhow, Aaron rated it 7 out of 10 in terms of looks and taste after comparing it with the many maiden attempt of other bloggers out there. I'm happy, Aaron doesn't have a sweet tooth, it gives him toothache, poor guy. But he had 3 of them, just to show his support. How can I not love him so dearly...

I initially wanted to make these for St. Pattie's Day but I procrastinated. After a quick chat with Pei-Lin, and after seeing her beautiful macarons, I was determined to make them. I couldn't wait for the grinder. I used storebought almond meal. It was a little grainy but I somewhat managed. They didn't look too bad eh? Maybe a little shabby...And the filling, either make your own black sesame paste and omit the sugar or use storebought black sesame paste and add a pinch of salt to it. I like my macarons when eaten together is not sweet and just nice. I hate the feeling of cloyingly sweet stuffs at the back of my throat, really hate it.

And because today is Macaron Day, I am so dedicating this post to Le Jour Du Macaron, belated St. Pattie's Day and to the great pal I know who bakes beautifully, cooks beautifully, writes beautifully and makes beautiful macarons, Pei-Lin!

Have a great weekend people...

Cute 3D Chilled Corn Kuih

2010-03-19T00:20:00.002+10:30

I spent a lot of my childhood time eating kuih muih like these. Kuih is what I would term Malay cakes, usually chewy and served at room temperature. Generally steamed and colourful and mostly uses coconut milk, pandan and banana leaves. In fact, my childhood time were spent eating and playing. We never need to learn how to cook. We get our daily fix from grandma. Breakfast would be teh tarik and a selection of kuih. Kuih muih is the plural of kuih. Kinda like kuihs. Lunch would be glutinous Nasi Kunyit with Ayam Kari Kapitan. And we even have tea break because we kids just never stop eating. Tea break would be similar to breakfast except, we never seem to be eating the same type of kuih twice in a day.

Grandma likes to reminisce old times and she always start off like this with a mixture of Hokkien and Baba Malay:

You kids are all so lucky now. You all don't know how to cook and yet are able to marry good husbands with maids to spare. Back then, we weren't so lucky. Life was hard and I started following my mother around and learn how to make kuihs when I was able to hold a spoon properly. We are all human but our lives vary a great deal....

All I could conclude is if you can't cook during olden days, you don't get a good husband to marry you and you don't get a maid to serve you. Nah, I'm joking. I could sense unhappiness in her tone every time she talks like that. But I never wanna ask much, it's complicated and only known to those close to me.

Anyway, back to this kuih. This one taste like custard jagung or corn custard kuih. I always frequent night market or commonly known as pasar malam when I was in Malaysia. There is this lady, she sells only kuih talam and custard jagung and they don't come by cheap. It's RM2 for 6 small pieces. I know RM2 is cheap but trust me, many kuih stalls are a lot cheaper than hers and her kuih also comes with a not-so-environmental-friendly plastic bag that says 'kuih talam' in green. I remember it so vividly because Aaron and me love it so much, we buy half a dozen of each every week from her!

Back to this corn kuih, this is adapted from Y3K latest book, Issue 53. Couldn't resist making them because they are too cute!!! This one uses one of those Japanese toy, the one used to make hard boiled eggs. I happen to have three of these, two given by Elin and one given by Ellena because I am such a lucky blogger to have people sending me stuffs. This one takes a while to make if you have limited mould however you can of course steamed them in a 7'' round greased tray if you wish. I've also modified the steps a bit and use cream style corn instead. Have fun!

Chilled Corn Kuih
(makes 12 if you use those Japanese Mould)

15g Wheat Starch (Tang Mein Fun)
75g rice flour
23g tapioca flour
6 tbsp white sugar
1 cup coconut cream
1 small can of cream style corn (Mine was 125g, very cute small can!)

Prepare your steamer and grease the moulds. Bring 200ml water to boil and add a pinch of salt to it. While that is on the stove, mix all the ingredients above in a large bowl and whisk to combine very well. When boiling, add the combined flour mixture into the pot and whisk well to combine. Use medium low heat and alternate between a silicone spatula and a silicone whisk, whisking and scraping the sides and bottom every now and then. When it is thickened, remove it from the heat. Working in batches, scoop 1 tbsp of batter into each cavity (that makes it 2 tbsp per mould to make a 3D car, fish etc.). Steam it unclipped over high heat for 10mins. When time is up, quickly clip them together and put it in the freezer. Repeat with remaining batter until done.

Serve well chilled.

Raising a Toast

2010-03-15T23:05:00.000+10:30

Thank you everyone. Here I am raising a toast to all of you who deserve it! Thank you for all the support all along. Thank you for being with me. Thank you for all of you who made my day with the cheerful comments and funny emails. I know I sound like an Oscar winner but you all mean a lot to me.

To those of you who made it to the food bloggers meet-up, CHEERS! My sincere apology for having this come up so late when everyone's thank you posts are up. Please forgive me for not visiting your blogs enough, don't talk about replying comments and emails and replying to questions/comments on my blog, I've done all that now and got myself organized and all settled now. So, sorry once again for the delay.

In a sequence that first came to my mind:

To Joslynn@A Nyonya's Kitchen who brought us the lovely flower (was it Daisy? I'm bad with flower names!), CHEERS! Thank you so much. Haven't gotten one from Aaron even for Valentine's for years so you really made my day!

To Joslynn@A Nyonya's Kitchen who bought me this lovely tissue box cover, CHEERS! I really hope you like the Chai. I have sent you an email on how to make your own Chai. My favourite recipe modified over years, it's thick and full of flavour, I'm sure you'll like it!

To Sonia@NasiLemakLover who gave me my most treasured gift of dried Bunga Telang, CHEERS! Just so you know, I have successfully smuggled it into Adelaide declaring it as potpourri. If I ever make pulut tai tai, you'll always come to my mind. Love you!

To Joslynn@A Nyonya'sKitchen who so willingly shared with me a packet of the Klang Bah Kuet Teh given by Sonia@NasiLemakLover, CHEERS to both of you! Joslynn knows how a packet of Bah Kuet Teh mixture like that meant for people living abroad. No Sonia, you are alright to make us chose between Bunga Telang or Bah Kuet Teh, I'll pick Bunga Telang anytime!

To Elin@Elinluv's Tidbits Corner who got each and every one of us a set of egg mould (you know, the Japanese toy), CHEERS! I have come up with other ways of using the mould to make fancy stuffs other than eggs, will share if I ever make them! Thank you once again! And I must be thinking of Aaron when I was smiling, we are very attached and tend to miss each other a lot, I hope you didn't find that too mushy since you asked in your post, haha! Did I mention Joanna is such a smart and clever girl, saw her results, freakishly smart and outstanding!

To Gertrude@MyKitchenSnippets, Joslynn@A Nyonya'sKitchen and Reese@ReeseKitchen, thank you for making me feel young and alive, love the Angpao, CHEERS! Love your company Gertrude, you're warm and nice and all. I know all of you are good people really.

To BeeBee@HoneyBeeSweets, CHEERS! What a bravo to flew all the way in from Singapore just to be with us. Really appreciate your attendance. And no, you are not the last person to blog about the meet-up, I am! So, you're fine darling.

To Pei Lin@Dodol&Mochi, Tracie@BitterSweetFlavours and SweeSan@TheSweetSpot, CHEERS! However, I really gotta say this to myself, shame on me! I felt so bad throughout the meet-up that I came empty handed when we called off the cookie swap. My bad for being so not thoughtful. Oh well, I guess the more reason for us to meet up again in future so I could make it up to all of you.

And Pei Lin, you really do take beautiful pictures, you have that style, flare and everything like a professional photographer. Tracie, you are such a sweet, pretty darling. The youngest one too, enjoyed your free coffee? Haha! Come to Australia, it'll be fun! Swee San, though I've only come to known you through Pei Lin, I felt you are very nice, no need to mention talented. It's displayed through your blog, I'm missing a lot before I came across your blog. Wonderful work!

On a separate occasion, like 2 days before the blogger meet-up, I met Angie@SeaSaltWithFood. Thank you Angie for sparing precious moments from your tight schedule. Now I know a lot more about you and I know this is late, but I'm glad you had a safe trip back to Vancouver. I hope you like the antique chopsticks I got you. I bought two, one for me and one for you. I hope you'll like it. Nothing beats photography props for bloggers like us.

On another separate occasion, I finally get to meet Zurin@CherryOnACake. Zu, terima kasih. Love the Roti Jala Mould and the Fish-shaped Kuih Bangkit Mould. I hope the set of silicone kitchen tool will come in handy for you. I use it like mad since it can withstand temperature up to 200°C or more.
Oh did I mention I raised my toast just now with a glass of aspic? Probably didn't look like it but it was. I raised my toast with a glass of Rosenmuskateller Jelly. Rosenmuskateller or Moscato Rosa is beautifully stunning, though a tad drier than your usual Moscato, nonethless, equally sweet. It has a beautiful steamy rose colour, very delicate tasting and surprisingly fresh. It makes a perfect match to all desserts and dishes which incorporate fruit let it be paired or downed alone. Moscato are usually served well chilled.

Rosenmuskateller Jelly
(makes 2 elegant champagne glasses of aspic)

1 cup Rosenmuskateller or Moscato Rosa
3 tbsp castor sugar
2 tsp gelatine powder
Blueberry

Before you start doing anything, freeze 2 champagne glasses in the freezer for about 20mins or more.

Bloom the gelatine with 2.5 tbsp of cold water and let it stand for 10minutes. Measure out 1/4 cup of the Moscato into a smallish pan and add sugar to it. Whisk it over low flame until all sugar dissolved. Remove from heat and add in bloomed gelatine paste. Stir vigorously with a whisk until dissolved and place it back over a bain-marie if needed, never direct heat else the gelatine would looses its gelling property.

Cool down the gelatine mixture until it is warm to touch. Working quickly, remove the glasses from the freezer and evenly pour it into the two freezing glasses. Quickly drop in one blueberry into each glass. Top with remaining champagne into the glasses evenly.

Send it back into the freezer to set for 20minutes. Remove it and chill it in the lower compartment of the fridge for at least a night. Watch magic develop the next day. Have fun looking and staring and gazing at a bubbly glass of aspic. You drink it with a spoon!

In conjunction with this, I am thus submitting this Rosenmuskateller Jelly to this month's Monthly Mingle, themed Champagne. I modified and reduced the proportion from the existing original recipe here by Heston Blumenthal. Very simple ingredients, just a little more steps to trap more bubbles than your usual glass of champagne. Wanted to trap that little blueberry mid-air but I decided it looked better staying at the bottom. And did I mention, it was a small little blueberry but it looks huge when dropped into the glass (see below to understand). Just the effect I wanted!

Here's a not-so-bubbly toast once again to end this post, cin cin!

Offerings to Jade Emperor

2010-03-05T18:30:00.000+10:30

I'm very much a Hokkien. On the eighth day of the Lunar calendar, we do offerings in the middle of the night to celebrate someone's birthday. His name is Thnee Kong (Hokkien), Tin Kong (Cantonese), Tian Gong (Mandarin) or Jade Emperor (plain old English). Some called him Heavenly God too. The fact is, Heavenly God is a closer resemblance of Thnee Kong if you translate it word for word from Chinese to English. Thnee Kong's Birthday falls on the ninth day of the Lunar CNY. I would like to think of this day as the Hokkien's Thanksgiving Day.

This day is so grand to us that grandma kept reminding us that Thnee Kong's Birthday is grander than the first day of Chinese New Year (CNY) where everyone usher in the Year of Tiger. Old folks can be really true sometimes. I do hear more fireworks and firecrackers on this day compared to the Eve of CNY and any other day withint the 15 days of CNY. Bright sparks and loud booms filled up the dark night and it continuously goes on all night long till approximately 4am.

Thnee Kong Seh (Seh = Birthday in Hokkien) is traditionally only celebrated by the Hokkien community, However, over years, non-Hokkiens have took upon this Hokkien tradition and celebrate it too. The more the merrier, everyone pray for a better year ahead. This occurred due to the fact that some of them have noticed a steady growth in business rate and improvement in things for that particular year where they make offerings to Thnee Kong.

Lunar Calendar is a little different from the daily calendar we based on. 11pm signifies the border between the eighth day and the ninth day of Lunar CNY. So, most people would offer praying paraphernalia to Thnee Kong at 11pm on the eight day of Lunar CNY.

We bought most of the offering because everyone is so busy and occupied that we have no time to prepare things from scratch. And they don't come by cheap either. But being Hokkien and strong believer of worshiping God, my family is more than willing to splurge for this day in guarantee of good business, health and wealth blessings from Thnee Kong for the rest of the year.

Let's start off by talking about sugarcane. A pair of sugarcane is a must when celebrating Thnee Kong Seh. It will be propped up or leaned against the gate of your house. Some place it right next to the altar too. A typical version of the story from my mum and aunt, Hokkiens hide in sugarcane plantation when they were refugees, running away from bad armies. They manage to regain freedom on Thnee Kong's Birthday. Hence, they felt it was with Thnee Kong's help and protection from above that they manage to be free and safe. Thus, this explains why sugarcane plays a significant role on Thnee Kong Seh. The sugar cane head is burnt along when you burn the gold paper (Kim Jua in Hokkien) and the Thnee Kong house.

Kim Jua are very much like Origami foldings. I see gold ingots and many many interesting shape and the shapes all help promote a better burning. My dad says the Kim Jua has to be fully burnt in order from Thnee Kong to fully receive everything. My sister suggested why not burnt a long string as well. So Thnee Kong can collect all the 'money' and bundle them up easily, hehe.

The above is our series of vegan. From clockwise on starting with raw groundnuts, dried Shiitake mushrooms, raw Mee Sua bundled in red thread, rock or lump sugar, red dates or Ang Zho in Hokkien and dried beancurd sheet. The centre one is dried lily bulbs or Kim Chiam in Hokkien. It translate to Golden Needle in English.

Hard boiled red eggs and Mee Sua noodles are must have items as they are traditionally served during birthday. Grandma says Mee Sua signifies longevity and red eggs symbolizes prosperity and is auspicious looking.

The above is Thnee Kong kuih. It's actually fluffy cakes shaped in the shape of peach. We always buy half a dozen, I don't know if there's a reason for it.

Mum reached wet market at 5:30am and grab two largest pineapples she could get. It's the above. And did I mention all offerings must be placed in bowls that aren't chipped or cracked. Even the vegan series have their own bowl and are strictly used to hold vegan stuffs. It surprises mum how pineapples and a lot of other stuffs could cost during CNY. I'm not surprised though, it is CNY period that they manage to perk up their price like that.

Our tower of fruits. Bottom layer, Fuji Apple followed by large perfect sweet peaches and a bunch of grapes tops it all. It is finished off with a red ribbon to give it the auspicious look and just for colour contrast.

Our proud tower of Angkoo Kuih. Multiple colours, many shapes and varieties of filling ranging from peanut, mung bean and red bean filling. Mum always buy them this way, 10 yellow pineapple mung bean Angkoos, 10 pink red bean Angkoos, 10 orange peanut filling Angkoos and 2 orange peanut filling 'edible gold bars'.

Above: 10 Hokkien Bak Chang or glutinous rice dumplings. It's glutinous rice with black bean, a large piece of fatty Bak or meat, salted duck yolk, chestnut and a large piece of black mushrooms, efficiently folded into a conical, pyramid shape. It's yummy and I love it. I'm weird though, I eat it dipped with castor sugar. What about you? It taste great plain though. It's well marinated with lotsa stuffs. I could taste strong 5-spice powder!

Ang Kuey Neng or Red hard boiled eggs. We're supposed to just offer 13 this year, we probably eta the rest. Why 13? I don't know, it changes every year and we watch TV shows to know. Funny?

Big large prawns, prefried to give it the golden red sheen. Prawns are so expensive during CNY that we always get Aaron to buy prawns back for us from Labuan. They are humongous and really juicy and succulent. Aaron's dad bought 5kg of it for us and trim them well, place them in plastic bags, deep freeze it and wrap them in layers of newspaper. When they arrive KL, they're still frozen. Yummy, love it!!!

What's CNY without beer??? Tonnes of Carlsberg and Guinness, and lotsa red wines and Martell for the night. They really seriously finish everything, can you imagine???

Chinese Steamed Cakes, made with lotsa eggs and flour. The one in pink is Huat Kueh. It's considered large for Huat Kueh as these Huat Kueh are usually made into muffin size and stacked in a group of five when offering for prayer.

A pyramid of mandarin oranges stacked for prayer.

Two whole yellow birds. Desexed chicken, very yellow skin and very tender meat. Don't ask me how they desex it because I don't know!

Pan-fried fish and yellow noodles. Fish, prawns and crabs are a must for prayers. The long strands of yellow noodles signifies longevity.

Crabs, they are steamed instead of being bathed with hot oil. If you bath them with hot oil, they don't taste so good when they are cold, though you can fry them again but we just prefer to use less oil.

Not in the picture, a can of longan and a can of lychee in syrup. Candies and sweet stuffs are a must to sweeten things up a little. The brown round thing is Nian Gao or sticky glutinous rice. Made with glutinous rice flour and gula melaka and steamed for a long long time to achieve such appearance. Two boxes of mee sua and a packet of candy completes it all.

These offerings are then arranged in a certain order on red tables facing the main gate and the main gate will usually be wide open to allow smooth flow of all the good things. And we have a whole roasted pig on the table for that night. Meet Mr. Porky below, he sacrificed himself for Thnee Kong and is 52kg in weight. We get the last round of roasted pig which finishes at 11pm. Then we have it delivered straight to our house and pray (not hastily though!) and have it chopped up and serve our guests. It's an open house, you can gate crash my house if you want. We used to serve mee sua with red hard boled eggs and the roasted pork. Over time, we've always take away more than a dozen of plain konloh wantan mee and serve them with pork. The particular store where we bough our wantan noodle taste pretty good.

Below is Thnee Kong house revealed. It's covered with a big piece of red paper until prayer time.

I admire the old man that makes our Thnee Kong house every year. The details are just so detailed. Even the fingers of the man holding the sword is complete. We love his workmanship and has been buying Thnee Kong house from him for the past twenty years and more. Prayer started and the candles and small and big joss sticks are lit. Each family members burn incense and say only good words and ask for Thnee Kong blessing for a better year ahead.

As midnight approached, things start to get burning. Its fire everywhere. We're among the not so civilized ones that meddled with fireworks and firecrackers. Here are a few shots of them just to test my point-and-shoot and my tripod in night mode. Add-on: Not in the picture, we have 6 small little red teacups; 3 cups are filled with Chinese tea and 3 cups are filled with rice wine vinegar.

I always have problem with fireworks and the wiring from lamp post to lamp post. They make the fireworks look horrible and those shown here are a few more decent ones.

I thought the fireworks look very much like a peacock's wing all flared open to attract the peahen, don't you agree?

Check out the flowers arrangement on the praying altar now. They are different once again and those withered flowers are replaced with new, fresh ones.

As the burning end, the tribute to Thnee Kong is completed and it is our turn to celebrate and serve our distinguished guests. The prawns, the whole roasted pork and practically anything edible on the red tables are served to our guests. I did helped cook a dish or two, shall go there later. As of now, I'm glad I finally got this posted. I have a BBQ farewell party to talk about and of course not missing out the blogger meet-up which has already been blogged by many. I'm in Labuan now, a small island off Sabah coast enjoying life and much goog goodness in life.

See you all in Adelaide soon with more new posts. I hope you guys are not sick yet in hearing about me and my life and the people revolving about my life. I know I can get pretty self-centred sometimes. I felt I'm very much tweeting about my daily activities here but I did include food for drool and a short little history every now and then when I wrote this post. Recipes will be back soon, muaks! I'm off for more seafood and beers now, it's a duty-free island, yum!