D e l i s i o u c i t y

Since the success of the lamb shank experiment posted here some weeks ago, I’ve been patiently waiting for another moment of craving for red meat.  It doesn’t come very quickly, I must admit, and maybe it’s a good thing since red meats (let alone lamb) are the very definition of calorific monstrosity. At long last, the frozen lamb shanks I have stashed away for such moments of hankering have finally been devoured. It doesn’t take too much effort to make this resulting dish, in fact the only trouble is to be patient about the wonderful smell of slow oven braising.

Braised Lamb Shanks with Sweet Potatoes
By Nikki A.
www.delisioucity.com

2 pieces lamb shanks, cleaned
4 Tbspn olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 red onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1.5 cm fresh ginger
3 Cups beef stock
2 medium sweet potatoes, diced
1/2 potato, diced
1 carrot, diced

Method
Heat the olive oil and fry the shanks until browned on most parts. Remove the shanks and place on a plate. Using the same oil, sautee the onions, ginger and garlic until translucent. Add the potatoes and carrots and continue to cook on medium heat. Add beef stock and let simmer until slightly reduced. Add the shanks to the gravy, and put in oven at 220C for 2 to 3 hours.

Penne Al’ arrabiata

1 Cup penne, cooked to aldente
2 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
2 Tbspn oliver oil
4 to 5 Tbspn tomato puree/chopped tomato/tomato sauce
3 thinly sliced chilli (I used the green chilli variety – which is why you can’t see it in the picture)
1 stalk of fresh cilantro, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil, then fry in the garlic. Add the chillies and tomato, then pieces of lamb shank and don’t forget the tender sweet potatoes and carrots from the braise. Sautee, and add the penne. Incorporate well and serve with chopped cilantro as topping. Add parmesan if you like.

Some notes I thought you might like to know:

• Arrabiata means tomato and chilli sauce. Remember, the chillies I used here are the green variety… so you can’t really see them but they’re there! I wish I had put in some more chillies though.
• I used much lesser tomato in this recipe because I wanted the taste of the braised lamb and sweet potato to predominantly come through.
• Why cilantro? Well you can replace that with fresh basil if you like for a more authentic Italian dish. I just happened to have cilantro in the fridge, waiting to be used and eager to rot ^_^

Selamat mencuba !

-nix-

Figs are gorgeous little things. Up until now I’ve only had access to the dried ones. When I first saw South African air-flown baby figs about a month ago at my favourite grocery store, I knew I was in for a treat. Now there’s figs galore everywhere and I still can’t get enough of them. Often I just eat them for breakfast with a few dollops of nonfat natural greek yoghurt, with some honey and a sprinkling of oats. Gorgeous. Then I’m all set for a morning cycle (or walk; either way I’d end up getting a workout!) to the library or somewhere else rather nerdish ^_^

Since it’s well and truly fig season now, I thought let’s try cooking them next! The thing is though, I don’t have much baking paraphernalia here, including my tart pans (which is great excuse to procure some new ones heheh). But I refrained so far… besides, who’s to say you can’t make a free-form tart instead? Here’s a beautiful galette expressing that very idea, and what’s great is that it has the easiest filling ever – soft vanilla and almond frangipane, topped with quartered figs and fresh blueberries, partially encased in a freely formed golden crusty pastry dough. I got the idea from Chez Pim who writes The Foodie Handbook; you should definitely head over to her site for a look at the delightful things she whips up. The recipe that I follow here are from a different source though, a website called frenchfood.com. This link will take you to the frangipane recipe (which I tweaked a little by replacing the granulated sugar with demerara, and using pure vanilla beans instead of extract); and this link will take you to the pastry dough recipe (or pate brisee). If you have been reading my blog for a while, I think you will find that I can get a bit OCD about reminding people to have cold fingers when working with pastries ;p Also, remember to pop the pastry dough in the fridge after it comes together, at least for an hour, before rolling.

Place the frangipane ‘paste’ in the middle of the rolled pastry, and top with figs & blueberries. Fold the edges of the
pastry in towards the centre, and brush with eggwash.

This dessert, I must say, was amazing. It was sort of an ‘unchartered palatial territory’ for me in the beginning (having  been the first time eating baked figs). But when the smooth frangipane hits your tongue, melts and fuses with the mellow roasted taste of the fruits, and combined with the buttery crunch of the pastry, you are left with a certain something-something defined by a flurry of tasty dimensions. I believe my tasters loved it too; this was brought to our Wednesday Coffee & Cake session this week  at the Institute and it went down quite well ^_^ I suppose you can try topping the galette with other fruits too if figs aren’t available.

Both science and religion have stressed the benefits of the fig whether these fruits are fresh or dried, and you can read all about it here.

Later alligator!
xoxo

I’ve been dreaming of making macarons with pink peppercorns for ages. Here it is, married with a smooth, silky mascarpone filling that is just too simple to create that I wonder why I had not been using mascarpone for fillings all this time! (Oh wait a minute… I remember. They’re pretty useless as they don’t hold their shape in hot climates) :p These were made over the weekend and if you’re wondering what’s up with the sudden surge of posts and food extravaganza, I’ve got plenty of reason. A couple of projects in the pipeline and I’m just testing out recipes I’ve never done before. For now, it’s hush-hush!

Pink Peppercorn with Strawberry Mascarpone Macaron
By Nikki A. , www.delisioucity.com

110g almond powder
200g confectioner’s sugar
A handful of peppercorn, rubbed to obtain the pink shell
100g egg whites (aged for 24 to 48 hrs)
25g caster sugar
A pinch of salt
Some red food colouring

Sift the almond powder and confectioner’s sugar together, making sure you push the larger particles through the sifter using a rubber spatula. Set aside. In a mixer, beat the egg whites with salt until foamy. Add the caster sugar little by little and continue to beat the egg whites until it forms a soft peak when lifted with your finger. You may add the colouring during this process. Then combine the dry ingredients together with the whipped egg white, and fold the two together in a scooping motion. Scrape the sides of your bowl as you scoop and fold, making sure that you don’t over-macaronnage. Once your batter starts to form a ‘ribbon’ or have the consistency of flowing magma, stop folding. Prepare a piping bag with a round tip. Insert the batter in the piping bag, and start piping the batter onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Sprinkle some of the peppercorn skin onto the macaron shells. Let the piped batter rest for about 20 minutes (or longer, depending on the humidity of the day), and once they form a ’skin’ or are dry when you touch them with your finger tip, you can pop them in a preheated oven. Bake at 175C for 15 minutes. Once done, leave them to cool before taking them off the parchment.

Strawberry Mascarpone filling

250gm mascarpone
A handful of fresh strawberries

Beat the mascarpone with a hand-held mixer. Chop the strawberries and add a little at a time to the mascarpone. Incorporate and ensure that the strawberries are pulverized. Fill in the centre of a macaron shell, and cover with another piece of shell. Refrigerate for 24 hours to enhance the taste of the macaron.

Just a word of wisdom about macaron textures: I believe that some people have been misled to think that macarons are these hardy, tough, crunchy things that are (god forbid!!) made of coconuts. Those are macaroons! Yes, yes of course some patisseries and patissiers insist on calling macarons macaroons, and that’s their prerogative (read here to know when a macaron really is a macaron). The point is not to mistaken these beautiful delicate things for the coconut cookie version ;p And worst still, there are macarons out there that have this awful chunky skin that crunches as you bite them and you’re left with a dry crumble that is absolutely traumatizing to the palate – especially for people who experience their first macarons. They’re not meant to be that way, I can assure you. And the insides should be a little bit cakey and semi-wet; not dry and unappetizing. It’s awful that some patisseries taunt their colourful macarons in their posh glass cabinet and you find that they’ve done it all wrong: from the shell to the filling. I am no expert but I know that it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that appearances alone just don’t cut it – no matter how smooth, and cute the tiny gerbets look.

Maybe I’m a tad too harsh here. After all, the Italian meringue technique does indeed yield a ‘tougher cookie’. It does yield a crunchier skin but not to the extent of utter dryness that you can here a snap when biting through. I used to adore the Italian meringue method, and whenever I made them, the shell was always a lot less moist (hence more robust and won’t crack as easy). But I have to confess that the French meringue method is simply a forte I have learned to claim – perhaps more than anything because of its simplicity, and secondly the resulting ’shine’ on the shell left by the sugar. Haha that’s a bit of a tongue twister. Anyway, I’m not one to kiss and tell; but the macaron on the left above is a raspberry mini mac that just won’t tear off upon biting that nothing but crummies fell into my mouth! It came from a renowned French pastry chef’s cafe et patisserie right here in Oxford. Enough said ^_^

Hands down, my favourite flavour to date.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that because I wasn’t brave enough, the taste of pink peppercorn in this macaron wasn’t overpowering in any sense. In fact I wish I had put in some of the crushed pepper in the mascarpone filling. Contrasts are wonderful when done right ^_^ (enter Pierre Herme!)

That’s it from me for now, see you again soon!
xoxo

Distance truly does make the heart grow fonder! Nowadays I’m constantly looking for any glint of home comfort food without having to make them myself. Does that make sense? I mean I am simply craving for anything hot, spicy, sour, and probably more predominantly, fried, fried, FRIED! Do you notice how many foods from our part of the world are fried? Fried fish.. fried chicken.. cucurs (fritters), you name it, we fry it! And although currypuffs can technically be baked, who on earth finds that yummy? ;p The point is, we know it’s unhealthy but we continue to love fried food. And that’s precisely what I’ve been looking for (and I won’t care if you judge me). The closest things to fried currypuff here are the Indian samosa and the Cornish pasty, but they don’t quite cut it for me, at least not when the mood is there to whip up your own food! Sometimes comfort food is just that: it has to be home made.

Snacks like popia (springrolls) and currypuffs can be found in many parts of Southeast Asia, and I am not sure who ought to claim it as theirs. In Singapore, you can easily find these in those Old Chang Kee carts dotted all over Orchard Road.. and in both Malaysia and Brunei, you only need to drive a little to the nearest pasar malam (night market) till you stumble upon fried food heaven; and in no way is the karipap elusive. Apparently Thais have a version of the karipap too.. called kalipap (?) and of course, the Philippino version exists, called panada. I can only imagine that this came from the Spanish version of the empanada/impanada, which makes sense since the Philippines was colonized by the Spanish. I do tend to go off a tangent.  Anyway, wherever it originated from is not much of an issue – there’s plenty of variety in terms of what can constitute as  the filling for currypuffs and that simply leaves a lot of room for people to claim as their own. Here’s a recipe which I borrowed from this wonderful Malaysian website which takes you through the step-by-step process of making our much loved karipap ^_^ It’s for the specific swirly/shell pastry and it is fun to make. There is something about the repetitive work of pastry-making that’s simply intoxicating and this was such a stress-buster for me last weekend!

(Remember, you can click on the link where the original recipe is and pictures of the techniques involved)

Karipap Pusing/Karipap Putar
Source: website

Pastry ‘A’
300gm all purpose flour
1/4 Cup vegetable oil (I used sunflower)
Pinch of salt
1/2 Cup water

Add salt to flour, then pour the oil into the flour and combine using the tips of your fingers. Add water a little at a time until all is incorporated and forms a dough.

Pastry ‘B’
150gm all purpose flour
100gm unsalted butter (the original recipe called for margarine)

Combine the butter and flour together to form a dough.

Filling

2 sweet potatoes, diced finely
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
2 (or more) Tbspns of curry
1 Tbspn cinnamon powder
Salt and sugar to taste
Some oil
1 cup water

Fry up the onions in oil until they are translucent. Add the potato and the rest of the ingredients. Let simmer in water and keep on topping up until all the moisture is reduced. Mash the potato to get a smooth filling (optional, of course). You may add chicken or beef to this recipe.

Method

Roll both types of pastries into balls, ensuring that the ones from Pastry ‘A’ are slightly larger than ‘B’. Using a rolling pin, flatten a ball from Pastry ‘A’ and place a dough ball from Pastry ‘B’ in the centre of it, enclosing it to form a larger ball. Repeat with all of the balls. Take one and roll with the pin, to form a pastry sheet. Now roll one edge of the sheet towards the other, just as you would a swiss roll cake. Then roll again with the pin, now forming a sheet with a narrower width. Roll once again from one edge towards the other. Take a knife and cut this roll of pastry into a few slices about 1cm thick each. For each of these slices, roll again with the pin to obtain a circular sheet. You can see from here the beautiful swirly pattern on each sheet. Insert fillings (about one teaspoon is often enough) and enclose into a half-moon shape. Pinch the edges and twist to form the familiar looking currypuff. Fry in hot oil in a deep frier or a wok.

Comfort food currypuffs? Done. If you’re like me, enjoy this with an awesome dipping of chilli sauce (sweet thai chilli is good too). Fantastic.

I must say, kudos to the creator of this recipe! This is such a beautiful, flaky pastry that has a ’short’ texture and simply crumbles and melts in your mouth. The intricate layers and swirling effect are gorgeous, and they may look complicated but they are far from that. Mine here are sooo imperfect but take a gander at the pictures from the website where the recipe came from! Beautiful, no?? The filling is awesome too, I must add! But a wee warning though: this  karipap has a high potency… for fat deposits to settle straight to your hips!

And that’s the way the cookie crumbles karipap krumbles ^_^

xoxo

Oh dear,… I’ve been so busy with studies life that I’ve completely forgotten to edit and publish the draft of this post!  It has been sitting in my drafts dashboard for at least three weeks now. My sincerest apologies to friends who have been asking about waiting for the recipe of this dish on facebook – all I can say is, better late than never (*sheepish smile*). I also realize that as we are approaching the season of spring and gradually waving goodbye to the wretched cold and frosty winter madness, this lamb shank looks a little bit out of place. But I won’t feel too embarrassed yet, as winter is going away very very slowly at a rate worth being impatient about. Heck, I have been missing the sun so much, and the dreadful cold has certainly been affecting my mood and pace of work lately >_< But not to worry, I am very happy that the past couple of days has seen some glorious sunshine warming its way through the naked tree branches and cutting the nevertheless icy air. That’ll do it for now, I reckon. Anyway… back in Brunei and other hot places, people eat lamb regardless of the weather, so here you are, my personal take on the braised lamb shank ^_^

(apologies if u are a vegetarian or dislike red meat :-/)

Nikki’s Braised Lamb Shanks
www.delisioucity.com

2 pcs of lamb shank, cleaned and lean (!)
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic
some olive oil
1 carrot – diced
1 large potato – diced
1 stalk fresh rosemary
2.5 cups water
1 cup beef stock
3 to 5 Tbspn oyster sauce (careful, salty!)
Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 200C. In a stock pot or dutch oven, heat the olive oil and add onions and garlic until fragrant and slightly caramelized. Add the shanks in and cook until slightly browned throughout. Take off from the heat. With the leftover olive oil, add the potato and carrot, oyster sauce, and beef stock. Let simmer and then add the shanks back in. Add the rosemary, and top up with water. Bring to the boil and then pop the stock pot, with lid, into your oven. You may cover the pot with aluminium foil too if the cover is missing. Set the oven to 3 – 3.5 hrs. Check every hour to stir the gravy and shift the lamb shanks about so that they get cooked nicely. By the end of 3.5 hrs you will get a beautiful fall-off-the-bone meat! Serve with toasted loaf slices, or yorkshire pudding.

Now you may notice the addition of the oyster sauce in the recipe. It is of course entirely up to you on that., but I can assure you it will not allude to the taste of bak choy in oyster sauce at all! I honestly didn’t have a clue how to make brown sauce and didn’t bother checking as this dish was made late on Saturday night on a whim, so I grabbed the next best thing (hehe) and it turned out to be a fluke. Was half dead by the time 3.5 hours was up. Oh but what a sensational way to enjoy Sunday lunch this was! Anyhow, I am very certain that there are a million other lamb shank recipes out there (most using alcohol though….) and perhaps most importantly, more traditional ways of making them. If you do get to try them or indeed have your own recipe, I’d love to know! For an absolutely professional take on brown sauce and other herbed things for example, you can look at our wonderful local talents from the brigade of Empire Hotel & Country Club at Chef Nash’s wesbite.

I really do appreciate you dropping by to this website despite the stalls and stagnations. Yes, all of you! Thank you!for your continuing support! ^_^

And happy gastroventuring! xxx

Before you think I make my own bread or have a stone or brick oven (like our friend here), let me just stop you by saying one thing: Online  grocery shopping. I simply love the fact that over on this side of the world, all you have to do pertaining to grocery shopping is go online, pick your orders, choose your date and time of delivery, and voila! Groceries will miraculously be delivered in a box right at your doorstep. Can life get any easier? The only possible flaw about this system is that sometimes, you can’t put the image of the item you want in your head: dimensions-wise, weight-wise, volume-wise… especially if you can’t be bothered. I suppose it’s different if the stuff is right there in your hands and you can feel or touch it. As a result, my order of a loaf of stonebaked bread very much surprised me when it came, as it was massive! As in 800 grams massive. Now how could one person possibly finish this loaf of bread before it goes stale and only good as a decorative element on the window of a bakery? I started with sawing the loaf, into 5 reasonably chunky portions and froze 2 of them. The other 3? Well, various things really, including simply toasting slices of them in olive oil. Here are three ways I enjoyed the bread the past weeks, and trust me, there’s still one chunk left in the freezer!

Bruschetta
This is inspired by that bruschetta scene on the movie Julie & Julia!

Ingredients
Bread slices
Olive oil for frying the bread
Tomatoes, diced
Fresh Basil leaves
Fresh Garlic, chopped
Mozzarella cheese, grated

How to
Fry the bread slices until crispy on the outside but still soft inside. That means don’t overdo it. Place on the side and make the topping. Mix all the ingredients together and lay an appropriate amount on the bread. I didn’t bother mixing them, so I placed the mozzarella first on the bread, the layered on everything else. Enjoy!

Have you ever tried poaching an egg? Not as easy as I thought, but it might help if you have a slotted spoon and remember to use fresh eggs. This one isn’t perfect, but ooooh it’s so lovely to eat that I forgot to take a picture of the oozing egg yolk (which I normally detest). Changed my mind thanks to this!

Poached Egg on a bed of Spinach & Yellow Peppers, and Toast
Really good for breakfast!

Ingredients (for 1 serving)
One Egg
A handful of Baby Spinach, washed
A quarter of Yellow Pepper, diced
Small Onion, diced
1 clove of Garlic, pulverized
1 piece of toast
Some butter
Salt & pepper to taste

How to
Melt the butter in a pan and add the onions and garlic. Sautee until the onions have caramelized. Add the peppers, followed with spinach. Don’t overcook, and add salt and pepper to taste. For the poached egg, boil some water, and break the egg into the water. Immediately spoon the egg whites onto the centre so that it covers the yolk part. This involves constantly spooning the egg so it comes together nicely. Take it out of the water and place on top of the vegetables and toast. Enjoy!

Finally, everyone’s favourite, French toast. It’s so simple I am sure you won’t need the recipe ^_^ I grew up eating the sweet version of the French toast, but I have come to know from lots of people that the savoury version is more familiar. Whatever your take, this is definitely a comfort food I can never live without.

Powdered French Toast

If you’re a big fan of bread, you probably have some favourite recipes of your own, so please do drop us a message! Except of course if it’s just toast ^_^

At some point the past two years, baker-bloggers from all over the world started becoming more or less excited & obsessed about green tea powder, or Matcha, as they were about getting that macaron ‘feet’ to rise. You can see evidence of this here at Fanny’s, Kelli’s, Mandy’s, Inne’s, Aran’s, and oh dozens more websites you can just google off! There is an almost macaron-baking-like cult-following for matcha (I say almost because I’m biased as macarons are my first love – but they could be on par; what two things other than macarons and matcha can you see personal blogs being dedicated to?!) Of course, there are those bloggers who use matcha regularly, to make beautiful things for entremet components like genoise and mousses; or simply refreshing panna cottas; cupcakes and yes, macarons.  Do I need say more as to where this post is leading to? ^_^

I have to admit at the outset, I love green tea. It’s not just something to drink as you wash sushis and sashimis down your throat; for me it’s one of the things I can always  rely on if I need a detox. Sometimes I consume them to no end from breakfast to the last thing at night, whilst on other times they’re just a patch for some binge of a series of guilty pleasures – akin to the purpose of maintaining a balance in the world of sinful sweets. One of my colleagues drinks them like water – she brings them in a flask and sips on it all day. I am sure you too have read or heard from somewhere about the healthy benefits of green tea, so I won’t divulge any more here than the stuff you can already find on google or wiki. Although, if you’re not much of a tea fan, or don’t like things flat with no sugar, you may find green teas difficult to consume on a regular basis. Matcha has, after all, a peculiar taste, so if  you’re up for it, why not start with a matcha drink? Cooling, summer staples like frappes or just matcha in milk served with ice can be quite heavenly: I think it’s just the thing to drink as you kick back and unwind after a long day. I love Starbuck’s matcha drink, and Coffebean also has a version of this; so it shouldn’t surprise you by now that I am such a fool for trying to replicate the stuff that I love most, in my little kitchen. It’s like the whole Laduree ’s macarons story and the Pret a Manger’s tomato mozzarella croissant episode. When you can’t bring good  comfort food that you crave so much to home, the next best thing is to try making them! Lesser carbon footprint, too ^_^

Matcha Melon Frappe
by Nikki A., www.delisioucity.com

1/2 tspn matcha powder (more if you like)
2 Tbspn warm water (not boiling)
150 ml melon milk
(you may also use skimmed milk, and add instant melon powder; or substitute 100 ml milk + a few chunks of fresh melons)*
Lots of ice cubes!
*You may also like to use melon ice cream as a subsitute and adjust the milk accordingly. Add some sugar, or honey, or sugar substitute according to taste. You may not need this if you’re using the melon milk. Another alternative is to use fat-free yoghurt and be rid of the melons completely. The choices are endless ^_^

How to: Mix matcha powder in warm water until completely dissolved. Use a small whisk if you need to. Place milk, matcha paste, and ice into a blender and work it for 1 minute, or until you get the desirable foamy/slushy thick blend of an icy frappe. Enjoy!

Ahhh, just thinking about it sets me back to an imaginary island with the calm blue sea and warm wind in my face. By the way, this drink would be a good base for a protein shake too, if you’re into that for breakfast. Add in a scoop (or according to your required caloric intake) of whey or soy powder and blitz away.

Now we go to our second green-tea-possessed being,

Matcha Sables Viennoise

The thing about the matcha ‘cult following’ in the blogosphere really stood out in 2007 when Kelli’s (now closed) bakery, Amai ’s recipe won the Golden Scoop Awards. Lots of bloggers have tried and tested this winning recipe,  and have sworn to it’s gorgeous taste. I knew I had to make the sables but decided that I was going to use Pierre Herme’s recipe for chocolate sable viennoise instead. The main reason for this is only because I want to ‘handle’ the batter as little as possible, to create a ’short’ texture, and also the fact that their recipes vary in their fat source choices: PH completely made do without the egg yolks, while Kelli’s used three. However, there’ much more butter in the former. There is also way much more cocoa powder (which I replaced with matcha, of course) in PH’s recipe, which resulted in an almost green tea overkill if you really dislike the stuff. I liked it though, but after about four pieces I was done for. It’s bittery undertones makes this a surefire dislike for children and tea-haters, hehe.

Finally, how could I speak of love for matcha when my true love for macarons way surpasses tea of any kind? I think I’ve made so much macarons this year last year it’s ridiculous. I only say this because you would have thought by now that my skills have been perfected and I am flawless with the macaronnage process – but I’m not! These petit fours are just so temperamental (no I will never stop saying that) and so dependent on various variables like the weather (humidity especially), the oven temperatures (too low? air pockets! too high? browned shells! undercooked!), and of course the ever elusive number of right turns & folds to create the perfect ‘flow like magma’ batter consistency. Yes, even pro pastry chefs mess it up sometimes, so apatah lagi kediaku?! Anyway, I am glad that I made this during my short trip back to Brunei last month, at least the oven is more predictable than the one I have in UK.

Matcha-Marron Macarons
by Nikki A., www.delisioucity.com

95g almond powder
200g confectioner’s sugar
15g matcha
100g egg whites (aged for 24 to 48 hrs)
25g caster sugar
pinch of salt

Sift the almond powder, confectioner’s sugar and matcha together, making sure you push the larger particles through the sifter using a rubber spatula. Set aside. In a mixer, beat the egg whites with salt until foamy. Add the caster sugar little by little and continue to beat the egg whites until it form a soft peak when lifted with your finger. Then combine the dry ingredients together with the whipped egg white, and fold the two together in a scooping motion. Scrape the sides of your bowl as you scoop and fold, making sure that you don’t over-macaronnage. Once your batter starts to form a ‘ribbon’ or have the consistency of flowing magma (you may want to check national geographic for how that actually looks like!), prepare a piping bag with a round tip. Insert the batter in the piping bag, and start piping the batter onto parchment-lined baking sheets. You may want to pipe big-sized macarons (like the ones you see here), or slightly smaller ones that are easier to bite (hehe). Let the piped batter rest for about 20 minutes (or longer, depending on the humidity of the day), and once they form a ’skin’ or are dry when you touch them with your finger tip, you can pop them in a preheated oven. Bake at 175C for 15 minutes. Once done, leave them to cool before taking them off the parchment. Fill with your favourite buttercream or ganache and enjoy at room temperature. I used some leftover marron (chestnut) filling from my last macaron project, using a white-chocolate base.

Happy gastroventuring in the new year! See you in my next post ^_^

I had quite forgotten that I have this food blog until I received two emails a  week ago.  One of them was the occasional bake request which I, almost by default nowadays, had to decline. The second email was a wonderful letter from a fellow baker, whose words reminded me of how much passion I have for baking and pastries. It was like a cold splash of water that woke me up to the fact that it has been at least three months since I baked anything worth blogging about – or anything sweet for that matter. Unless of course you don’t mind reading yet another recipe for lazy day, uninteresting but effortless, chicken roast. That, my friends, I have plenty of.

I’ve also come to  realize that my visitor counter has been clocking in even when I’ve been extremely quiet the past months, and I really hate to have disappointed everyone with the lack of updates. It came as no surprise that I felt the pressing need to start writing again – which literally means baking again. So here it is, my much too delayed post that I promise will be a delight to your eyes as it was to our noses and taste-buds; sweet shortcrust pastry with vanilla creme patissier (pastry cream) and fruits of the season, and of course, my part-time love, french macarons (or macaroons, as some may insist) – in the most scintillating floral scent of crushed sugared violets; Belgian dark chocolate, and marron (chestnut) paste, straight from France.

Sugared Violets

Actually, the emails I mentioned came in perfect timing. I thought, apart from updating my blog, it was a good opportunity to introduce some of the products of my baking obsession during my turn to co-host a weekly Coffee & Cake Wednesday event at the Institute where I now study. It’s simply fabulous to have these social and informal gatherings, where we would take turn to bring cakes, biscuits and other baked goodies (or non baked, in the case of chilled cheesecakes, fresh fruits and cheeses!)

I was very excited at the prospect of baking for this event, but knew that I had to plan.. because I simply did not have all my paraphernalia from home save my trusty spoonula, medium balloon whisk, small rolling pin and measuring spoons (all safely flown in by hitch-hiking my luggage bag). I purposely chose to co-host the event at the very last bit of the Michaelmas term, so I could amass my baking arsenal that is so absolutely crucial  for my bake projects, especially for the purpose of the perpetually temperamental macaron. Even so, the macarons still gave me trouble.. because now I was deprived of  the oven at home that I painstakingly learned to master over the past year. Ah well, at least about 100 macaron shells were the right texture, while the rest  were chucked into the bin, accompanied with swear words I’d rather not mention here! (but is featured here).

For the macarons, I’ve always been captivated by the sheer ‘prettiness’ of the violet scent and the nuances of floral sweetness it displays, ever since I tasted Canele’s version of the violet buttercream. Duncan of syrupandtang.com also wrote a post on using violet syrup and liquer but it can be quite tricky to capture the robustness of its flavour. Of course, I was more intrigued when Helene of mytartlette.com (yes, one of my many pastry idols!) used crushed sugared violets to merely top the shells. So when I saw some crushed violets on display at a cake shop in the Oxford Covered Market, I was simply elated…

…but only to discover that the shells didn’t work!! For some reason I thought coarser violet particles would lend more than mere subtlety in flavours to the macarons, which isn’t too much of a long shot.. but the violets sunk into the smooth batter (especially baked at low temperatures of 150C), even after the batter puffed up! So in the bin they went. Basically, learning the lingo of a completely different oven involves A LOT of experimentation. With the low temperatures that I started with, it meant that I had to increase the amount of time to bake the shells. This substantially and in effect ruined the shells because they would by then produce ‘tough cookies’ that crunch upon each bite. NO way, hozay! Macarons are supposed to be very delicate with a super-light crack and not crunchy by any means. I can only be thankful for the cheaper prices of almond meal in UK, compared to Brunei.

Apart from the largely failed (save 10 pieces?) violet macarons, I also made the usual chocolate ones with the dust of cocoa… only this time I used Belgian dark chocolate instead for the filling. French Valrhona can get very expensive and after spending a hefty sum on my new baking paraphernalia, I thought I’d just stick to Belgian from Tesco’s (ooooooh the shame!!) which firmed up too well thanks to the cold weather and/or possibly some steam escaping into the chocolate whilst I tampered it into a ganache. Still, nobody complained; instead the wonderful people from the Institute were only too kind to say the nicest things to me ^_^

For the third macaron flavour, I used chestnut paste that I found at this awesome delicatessen also at the Covered Market; a purveyor of fine foods and ingredients that is forever going to be bookmarked in my list of places to go.  Every winter that I was in London, I always always had roasted chestnuts by Oxford Street from the stocky man with the charcoal-dusted fingers, who sells them at a pound per (tiny) bag. So chestnuts have become a traditionally winter flavour in my book, and yes, I did make sure that  I bought some of the roasted ones from the very same man last week! For the macaron filling, you may find that it can be a bit watery so I thickened it with white chocolate (ganache) and a few grams of almond to lend some texture. If you’re in the mood to make your own paste, you can find some good pointers from my favourite Singaporean blogger, Karen.

Finally, the fruit tartelettes were really done on a whim so I must admit that I did not use my usual pastry recipe  (although I did find there was no trouble in having cold fingers to work the dough, thanks to the weather). I have no shame to admit that I used ready-to-roll sweet shortcrust pastry from Jus-Roll (they’re good); and here’s a recipe for creme patissier (pastry cream) that you may like to try for your mini tarts.  Simply top with any fruit you like, excluding durian, I should think:

Remember to not overwork your pastry; make sure your fingers are cold; and that the pastry cases are baked blind with parchment and pastry weight/beans/rice to hold them down.

Till we meet again in another post, I shall now leave you with my co-host’s offerings, which were an absolute delight to the palate especially because the cheese was authentic and brought in straight from Parma, Italy, and the semifreddo was… what can I say? Simply bellissimo!

See you in the next gastroventure, and do tell me what you’ve been up to!

My good friend D wrote to me some weeks ago about creating a set of desserts  and other baked goodies for her in-laws. I ended up making two desserts, one savoury, and three petite fours (I don’t know if scones qualify as one, but I did make them small!) In making these, I nearly went ‘mentalist’ (if there’s a word) due to anxiety, and because there was so much preparation to do for each of the components. Naturally, some dessert parts should be made in advance to give time for resting (pastries); and chill (mousses and creams). Mind you, as I have no  formal training whatsoever with pastry chef-ing, (or professional kitchen management for that matter),  I was very likely to be a difficult person to live with at that time, as I wanted everything to go well

I’ll have you know though, that I was simply elated with this bake request, because to be honest, I was getting sick of baking cupcakes that keep on pulling out of their liners (the fate of scrumptious, milky & buttery recipes)… and decorations that  remind me too much of my play-doh-playing youth. I thought, now’s the real dessert deal, with plenty of careful planning, and opportunities to learn. Thank you D, for trusting me with this project; it actually resuscitated me from all the monotonous work of my side business and reminded me why I enjoy baking as a hobby in the first place ^_^

So come, on with the gastroventure!

D gave me the liberty to choose desserts with the only prerequisite of making them ‘not too sweet’. Of course, this was a little bit difficult to achieve because I don’t really like tweaking recipes too much for fear of disrupting the chemical reaction between ingredients and resulting in a flop :-/.  It doesn’t help either that I am yet to sit for a Pastry 101. I wanted to make them as presentable as possible too, so I went over to Canelle et Vanille for inspiration. The author and ex-pastry chef  of that website, Aran Goyoaga, amongst others, is instrumental in shaping the way I look at food and food-styling. I picked a recipe that was to be an ode to her and followed it almost entirely (which I sort of regret because the recipe uses a glucose base to make a dry caramel, which resulted in an uber sweet ‘dish’). However, I picked this because of the simplicity and straightforwardness of the flavours, and Aran’s impeccable taste and neatness is reflected in the presentation. For her full recipe, click here.

Dessert 1 – Dark Chocolate Mousse with Banana Caramel, Honey Roasted Peanuts, and Caramel  Fleur De Sel Ganache. The components for this dessert are:

1) Chocolate tartelette cases (I used Pate Sucree, short, but not too crumbly. In fact the cocoa turned it a bit tough). I know I owe some people the recipe and method.. it will come! I promise. If you could find a good recipe online, then the only things I would pass on to you here is not to overwork the dough and to chill it for at least two hours before rolling.

Baking it blind:
After a couple of hours of resting in the chiller, flatten your dough but do not knead. Roll it to a reasonable thickness, and lift it with your rolling pin to line the mould/case. Press with a small piece of dough to create an even surface. Cut excess dough. Take a piece of parchment and cover the pastry case. Pop in the fridge for 10 minutes to chill again, then add rice or dried beans on the parchment to hold down the pastry while it is baked. You may also want to prick the bottom with a fork. Bottom of the tartelette cases, that is.

2) Banana Caramel. Here you make a dry caramel, which is essentially burnt sugar, and add bananas to it. C’est simple! But beware of the spitting and spluttering.

After the baked cases have cooled, add the banana caramel, then top off with some honey roasted peanuts! Non, zis is not fogh ze allerjhic pipew.

3) Salted Caramel (Caremel Fleur De Sel) Ganache. I love this the most! Imagine salty chocolate.. with a distinctive taste of warm, burnt sugar. I know you can’t really see the layer in this picture, but it’s there ^_^

4) Dark Chocolate Mousse. Now I wish I had just made this using my usual mousse recipe. This was a tad too sweet even for fat old me. Anyhow, just use a round tip and a piping bag to get the effect, then sprinkle some chopped roasted peanuts. Finally, make curliques from tempered chocolate and place on top with a good dusting of cocoa. Or, just scrape a block of chocolate with a knife (hehe… cos either way, I’m not good at this). Observe/:

Dessert 2 – Summer Berry Charlotte with Fresh Berries and Italian Savoiardi fingers

I think Charlottes are the most aesthetically pleasing desserts on the face of this earth. You often end up wondering what is inside that wall surrounding the innards of a Charlotte- a mousse? what kind? what flavour? And what’s up with the wall? I opted to make this up as I went. The ‘wall’ was made of Savoiardi cookie fingers, straight from Italy, which are quite an upscale type compared to the generic “sponge fingers” you might find at Supasave. Inside was a Summer Berry Bavarian Cream, which is a mellow but subtley zesty, summer-fruity concoction that could only be described as perfectly heavenly and refreshing. Ok, I realise that’s a bit of a tongue-twister. Nyaman wah! I am confident of it because I made a tarte version and presented that to my family and everyone was craving for more (that I ended up buying loads of berries lately). If you can fork up for the expenzive berries, I would make them everyday Now why can’t berries be grown in Brunei?! Note to the Department of Agriculture.

Whilst the frozen mixed berries are perfectly fine for the bavarian cream (since you pulverize them into pulp anyway), you’d definitely need fresh berries for decoration.. which is why I love this time of the year!  It’s summer in the northern hemisphere and the chilled aisles are packed full of beautiful harvests, and I wish I just had the time and energy to make proper patisseries out of them.

To make the berry Bavarian cream, you’d need egg yolks, heavy cream, sugar, gelatine (of course I use the Halal ones), milk, and a bit of lemon juice. A lot of people have been requesting for this dessert lately (since I loaded up the pictures on FaceBook), and have subsequently been shocked to discover how much I charge for them ‘per charlotte’. Cutting the story short, let me just clear the air and say that these berries are seasonal and they’re imported and they are extremely expensive! A punnet of blueberries? $11 to $12.  And strawberries? $5-$6. What about cherries? $4-$6. I find it awefully distasteful that sometimes people do not appreciate how much actually goes into making food from imported items. Unless you have a secret berry garden tucked in your backyard, and you eat the harvest all the time, paying premium price for imported goods seems to be the only option for non-producers like us in this country ^_^ Big sigh.

Since this post is becoming too long,  and I’ve edited this draft more than 20 times (no joke!), I’m just going to post the pictures of the rest of the spread and possibly write about them when I have the energy next time ^_^ So do visit again for updates… as I understand that some of you actually do read my posts and not just come here and copy/paste my designs without acknowledging my work ^_^ (yes, it has happened, and it is very uncool to plagiarize ;p).

No. 3 – Macarons Assortement.

If you have been following my blog, you’d notice how big my macarons have become. I suppose my only explanation is that I have broken even from my initial investments and can now offer these temperemental gems at your money’s-worth. It’s also a result of  the fact that my batches turn out well after baking and I get little or none of the cracked dome/feetless effect. This has certainly helped in minimizing my losses. I can also assure you that my macarons are, though not consistently porcelain-perfect on the surface, are relatively superior than the alternative ones you may find here. I am confident of my product because I make them individually out of passion and that I do not sacrifice taste for branding. Mind you, I researched and trained myself to make these diva of a petit four for at least 6 months.. and have finally perfected them in a year’s time. Finicky little things.

No. 4 - Another berry entree; Fresh Blueberry Honey Scone. The recipe for this is beautiful in all its simplicity, in that it uses honey and buttermilk which gives a nice balanced taste. I packed them with fresh blueberries and served with a jar of German wild berry conserve. To make fluffy yet flaky scones, reserve the batter for about half an hour and also do not overwork/overknead the dough.

Again, if you need the recipe, I am more than willing to share Just write me a note in the comment box and I’ll make sure I post up the recipe as soon as I find the time.

No. 5 – Cannele Bourdelais. These are amazingly familiar to our tastebuds, surprisingly. I have always wanted to make these french petite fours, which originated from the region of Bourdeux in France. Reading through some blogs, I realise that they are quite difficult to make too, despite the fact that the ingredients are simple. The original recipe contains a good amount of rum; of which we cannot consume as Muslims so I replaced that with vanilla. I suppose I can never attain the authentic taste because of this replacement ^_^ The traditional way of making canneles (pronounced Ka-na-Lay) is by using copper moulds and brushing the insides with beeswax for easy release. They also take a loooong time to bake.. traditionally 3 hours. But nowadays, you can use those nifty silicon moulds (I got myself a couple of Gugelhopfs) which may be cheaper where you are (they certainly are not where I am!) and make way without the beeswax. I also read somewhere that it makes no difference when you bake these with the absence of beeswax – which may be difficult to obtain in the first place.

Cannele purists will argue that these petite fours should have a burnt look on the surface, which is like eating the edges of our local Bingka. Very nice.

No. 6 – Smoked Salmon and Spinach Petite Quiche with Fresh Ricotta and Poppy Seed. This was the one savoury dish that had the potential to overtake the sweetness of the other items in the spread. Mainly because it’s fish ;p Not too bad either. I loved the crust the most though, because it is not a ‘proper’ pastry, rather it is made from cream cheese combined with other things. The marriage of flavours is intoxicatingly pleasant, and this one fills you up rather easily too. Finally, this was the one item that I had some a little help from the husby, and subsequently had him enjoy eating ^_^

If I may repeat myself, I had so much enjoyment and gained plenty of experience with this project. I’d have to say I’m better now with kitchen management. Sans the help, washing, cleaning, and getting on with the baking and final touches with la presentation can be all a tad too overwhelming. Perhaps my Monica Geller-esque, obsessive-compulsive, anally organising type of behaviour might have come in handy after all.

As much as cupcakes are making such a huge impact onto the world of food today (note sites such as Cupcakes Take the Cake, and Iron Cupcake competitions), nothing seems to surpass the impact that my husband has on me when it comes to football. Let’s just put it this way: I used to own a few Manchester United clothing and was politely asked to throw them out. Subsequently I was supplied with some Liverpool FC frock ^_^ But don’t you be judging us! I think it’s somewhat endearing. I mean, how many of you out there can even dare to hum the melodies of ‘Glory Glory..’ in a house where you were cajoled to swear allegiance to the one and only football club that promises you’d ‘never walk alone’, without getting the pouty, hurt puppy look?!

That’s right. In a world where football club rivalry runs rampant, a divided household is not a happy home ;p So I’m afraid that I have succumbed to the euphoria of football fanaticism. No wait, that’s quite an exaggeration. Let’s just say I support him wholeheartedly and his *ehem* team, albeit from the sidelines. Fair enough? Football fans, and perhaps especially LFC fans, are a hard-core bunch… and I’m probably not wrong to say so. Who else would you see standing tall in silence, giving a respectful military salute to these cupcakes, for God’s sakes? It was hilarious to see husby like that, and I am not sure where the whole sense of allegiance, loyalty, and ultimately, love,  for a football club millions of miles away comes from. Any sociological theory taught by my lecturers on this, I most certainly have forgotten.

Anyhow, I quite enjoyed making the fondant toppers on Liverpool FC that you see here. It was the most fun because I had my husband fully on board, cheering on while I painfully roll and knead the fondants, carefully shaping them into these tiny pieces of edible artwork. Such memories. hehe.

I also found out later on that the family who ordered these had a fantastical party of the red-and-white-theme strain. I want, I want! It is so nice to view their pictures on FaceBook and how everyone is dressed in those colours, and the kids having a cake-eating competition with their hands behind their backs ^_^. They had two cakes, one done by myself and the other by the very talented Candy Chan (who does the most amazing, precise wee details on fondants). It was very funny too as we both found out that our fondant cupcake toppers looked so much alike! And we didn’t even know we were both doing the same project for the same family. Haha.

The jersey-shaped cake turned out shorter than I had conceptualized, boo on that. But it worked nonetheless. Maybe it’ll win something in a tiny-T-shirt contest. Insides Rich Chocolate cake with ganache and Valrhona pearls. Oh yes, the cupcakes are my apparently bestselling Fudgey Walnut Brownie Cupcakes, which is receiving a couple more repeat orders from this family ^_^ Jazakallahu Khairan!

To everyone else, here, have some balls and you’ll find that you’ll never walk alone *koff koff*:

[Eye roll]

xoxo
nix