Its all about cafe

I haven't blog much about food and baking for quite sometimes. Unfortunately just like blogging, baking has taken a back seat ever since I've made the transition into a new job. I know the passion is there and I just to make time for it. Probably if there is a demand (who wants cakes??), I will be more eager to re-ignite this old passion. Usually, its really difficult for Peter and I to finish up a whole cake by ourselves, of course there is a concern with the amount of cab and calories as well. ;) 

On the other hand, good food was never lacking no matter how busy I am. Today I am just gonna share with you some of the nice cafe that I love to visit during those lazy weekends. 

1. Miss Ellie Tea House @Taman Melawati  (ww.missellieteahouse.com)

This cafe is a hidden gem. Located deep in Melawati, it only takes me 7 mins of jog to reach the cafe from my home. The cafe was owned by Peter ex-secondary school mate, who happens to be a pastry chef. The place is quite serene and the whole ambiance spells homey. The menu is simple and straightforward, but the highlight is definitely the great range of freshly baked cakes and dessert. We had both lunch and high tea at the place before, while the lunch were pretty much standard, the deserts were to die for.

 Pictures taken from Miss Ellie Tea house's facebook 

Bangers & mash - grilled chicken sausage, caramelized onion gravy, buttered mash & house salad

Australian beef casserole, buttered mash, vegetables & fresh bread roll

 Panna cotta, creme brule, chocolate fudge cupcakes

And the English Scones, comes with spread of  strawberry jam and fresh cream, which is super good!

2.  That Latte Place@Ampang Hilir

That Latte Place is a modest cafe with the simplest setting yet offers one of the best coffee in town. The al-fresco style cafe is just 10 mins away from KLCC, yet its well shielded from the hustle and bustle of the city. Surrounded by the greens, this is the place where I have discovered my favourite drink - Hazzelnut Milk. 

The open kitchen, where you can see the chefs busy in action 

Cafe latte, hazelnut milk (foamy and yummy!)

We had the egg benedict and the big breakfast the last time we were there. The big breakfast was alright, but the egg benedict is perfect! perfect soft bun, perfect poached eggs and perfect hollandaise sauce. I love to see how the runny egg yolk oozing into the bread, and subsequent into my mouth. ;)

3. Coffee Societe @ Publika, Solaris Dutamas

Peter and I stumbled across this place quite sometimes ago after a scrumptious dinner at Publika. We were walking around looking for a place for a cup of coffee before ending the night, with its hefty looking wooden benches, tables and even wall, coffee Societe looks absolutely welcoming at night. 

We didnt have the chance to try out other stuff on the menu as both time we were there after dinner. The coffee was pretty good, rich and flavourful. One good thing for the coffee lovers is that Coffee Sociate is serving free flow coffee (anything from espresso, mocha to latte) every Friday and Saturday from 6pm to late for only RM 10. But again, there is only so much you can take before coffee overdoes.

Cappuccino with the perfect latte art

Anyway, any coffee lover like to join me for a cuppa?

Baking Addiction 6: Blueberries Buttermilk Cake

Remember in my previous post i mentioned that I have alot of buttermilk leftovers to make use of after baking the rainbow pancake? Well, this beautiful Blueberry Buttermilk cake is the outcome of it. 

Blueberries Buttermilk cake, made in less than a hour 

Before I am proceed with the recipe, just wanted to elaborate abit more on Buttermilk. Buttermilk is not a common ingredient you can find in grocery stores, so far I only manage to find it at cold storage and local baking store, and its expensive. However, there is a substitute for this but I haven't test it out yet, basically buttermilk is equal to Acid + Milk + a few minutes to rest. According to a baker's blog post -Just add one tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar to a liquid measuring cup. Add milk until the amount reaches one cup. Let this mixture sit at room temperature for 5 minutes. The milk should look curdled. Stir the milk and use it straight away.

Recapping what I did was I searched randomly online for any recipe which utilize buttermilk, whereby most of it ends up with either cookies or teacakes. But frankly I wasn't too convinced with these recipes since buttermilk has a very distinct yogurt-ish taste, so I'm pretty sure the output would be something cross between chewy and dense. However, since I have so much of buttermilk to spare, I tried both cookies and teacakes recipes. And I was right 50-50. The buttermilk cookies was a nightmare, I was too ambitious with the fillings by adding too many chunks of dried cranberries, chocolate chips and topped lemon glaze. It was too sweet to my liking, and the texture doesn't seems right. of course, i will not mentioned the recipes of my failed products here. ;)

Here comes the successful half, the blueberry buttermilk teacakes was fabulous. It takes half the time of baking cookies to bake this cake, and its no fuss recipe, nothing sophisticated nor analytical, just simple straight forward mixing and baking. 

BlueBerry Buttermilk Cake

Recipe adapted from linden and rosemary.com
Makes 1 (9-inch) round cake
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup sugar, plus 1 tablespoon for topping
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1 large egg
1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1 cup fresh blueberry, plus more for serving

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees and coat a 9-inch round cake pan with some butter to prevent sticking.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside.
3. In a larger bowl, whisk together oil and 2/3 cup sugar. Mix in vanilla and lemon zest. Add egg and buttermilk and beat well. Add flour mixture to wet ingredients in three batches, mixing until just combined. Spoon batter into cake pan and scatter blueberries evenly over top. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar.
4. Bake until cake is just golden and a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 20-23 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes then invert onto a rack to cool. 

This teacakes is perfect with a cup of aromatic tea (duh!), both my brother and sister in law love it. Will bake another one with strawberry soon. 

Pork, music and friends

3 things that made me very happy last night. 

Firstly, the glorious pork meal at Swine, Ben's, Publika. We had Pork Ribs, potato skin with mozzarella cheese fillings, spaghetti carbonara and pork confit with watermelon and lychee salad. I know the name of the salad sounds kinda weird, but its a definitely must have. Fruity and herb-ish, sweet and salty, crispy and soft, all in 1 plate.

Great desert and coffee at The bee's, with beautiful and relaxing ambiance. It was the perfect place for hang out after a good porky meal. We had a sinful  Chocolate Berry Ice-Cream Cake which is served in a glass, it's a dark chocolate ice cream mixed with berries and a biscuit base. Dove into the layers of chocolate ice cream, berries and biscuit, and have a mouthful bite of all the three combination, I assure you it almost feel like magical. We also had apple crumble, cuppucino and the Last Polka's vanilla bean ice cream. We have high hopes for the vanilla bean ice cream but it was a tad too milky to my liking. Made from a blend of Javanese and Papuan vanilla pods, the Last Polka ice cream was famous for its 100% natural ingredients, combining creamy french style ice cream with regional Asian flavors we love, such as teh tarik, salted gula melaka, pandan kaya etc. 

Photo taken from Nana's facebook

Second thing that made me a happy girl last night was the fantastic music performance on the stage by a pair of rugged looking girl and a nerd-nerd looking guy (as described by my friend). They performed some of my favorite songs which I haven't heard for ages, Jason Mraz's, John Mayer's, Lifehouse etc. Nothing fancy nor pop-ish, just a great pair of voices accompanied by acoustic guitars.

Last but not least - friends to enjoy good food and music with. Lying on a lazy couch while chattering to each other, the feeling reminds me of a song by Jack Johnson, "Better Together":

"There is no combination of words I could put on the back of a postcard
No song that I could sing, but I can try for your heart
Our dreams, and they are made out of real things
Like a, shoebox of photographs
With sepia-toned loving
Love is the answer,
At least for most of the questions in my heart
Like why are we here? And where do we go?
And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy and
Sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing, it's always better when we're together"

I know this song is about couple's love, but sometimes the feeling of friendship do reminds me the feeling of falling in love. It can be as simple as laughing together at some silly jokes, or just chattering endlessly till the night fade away, you know that its always better when friends are together. 

Baking Addiction 5: Rainbow Pancake with Natural Coloring

I've been baking for only less than a year, there is no shame in admitting that my skill are pretty much amateurish, like I still couldn't figure out why certain recipes calls for 1/2 tsp of sodium bicarbonate, and other requires 3/4 tsp; Sometimes my cakes/ cookies are cloyingly sweet although I follow the recipe exactly (my baking sifu, Hannah said that I should always half the amount of sugar in the recipes by the Westerners, apparently Caucasian have sweet tooth). I've tried many recipes but I can never predict what will eventually come out from the oven, some turns out to be great, some was thrown into rubbish bin the moment it was out because it was way below my modest quality standard.

Well, I can pretty much sum it up by saying my baking experience for past 1 year was nothing but a trial and error process. If I bake a lousy one, I'll bake again until i get it right. It's sure not a cheap hobby but hopefully I will get better and better. This post describes the toughest ever challenge in my entire (relatively short) baking history - a birthday cake for my 1 year old nephew. I mean who wants to screw up a 1 year old's birthday by baking an ugly or yucky birthday cake right. So the pressure is tremendous. So much so that i fell sick after having the 1st bake trial last Saturday. 

Initially, my sister requested for a cake which used mostly healthy and organic ingredients.  And below is the recipe which she painstakingly went and scanned from a baby cookbook and email to me.

Oh boy it was a damn challenging recipe, I never use half of the ingredients stated in the recipe for any baking before- rapeseed oil, wheat germ, apple juice concentrate.... And after 1 week of futile search (at countless baking stores and supermarket) for all the ingredients, I finally give up and suggested another cake recipe to my sister. 

Picture taken from wendyinkk@blogspot.com

I present to you the beautiful Rainbow Pancake by table for two. The 'cake' has many colorful layers which is not just a pleasant sight to see, but all the coloring are from natural food source so its healthy to eat as well. The only downside is that its a pancake recipe which utilize buttermilk (again, its something which I never use in my baking before), and heck this is my first time making a pancake! The reason why pancake is preferred is due to the fact that it requires less amount of time for baking (imagine baking 7 layer of cakes, one by once), and high heat during baking will dis colorize the natural coloring. The original recipe calls for 7 layers since I cant find the blackberries (and also because I'm lazy), so I have omitted 2 layers. I've also changed the whipped cream to cream cheese.

So here comes the recipe: 

Natural Rainbow Pancake Cake (Recipe source: Wendyinkk)

Makes a large 10 inch wide, 5 inch tall cake. Easily feeds 20.

Each layer

1 grade B egg

1 Tbsp oil

50gm buttermilk

50gm cake flour

20gm sugar

¾ tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

Pigment sources + additions

Red layer = 50gm beetroot , raw

Yellow layer=50gm carrots, raw

Orange layer = 40gm carrots + 10gm beetroot , raw,

Green=40gm pandan juice + ¼ tsp baking power –baking soda

Purple = 20 blueberries(microwaved for 10 secs) + 2 Tbsp water+ ¼ tsp baking power -baking soda

For all layers, do them separately

1. Prepare the wet ingredients. Put oil, buttermilk and pigment sources together and blend ( I used

an immersion blender). Mix with egg.

2. Mix dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda and baking powder) together in a bowl.

3. Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Combine until a batter is formed, do not overmix.

4. Cook on frying pan on low heat (covered with lid) until surface is cooked

5. Flip over onto cooling rack to cool off.

6. Stack pancakes, separated with non stick baking paper. Keep chilled until time of use. 

Cream cheese frosting

One 8-ounce (227 grams) cream cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup (240 ml) heavy whipping cream(contains 36-40% butterfat)

1. In the bowl of electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. 

2. Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat in the vanilla extract. 

3. In a clean bowl, beat the whipping cream until soft peaks form. Gradually fold or beat the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture.

Assembly

Spread cream and stack the layers according to sequence. Spread cream over pancake and chill for another 5 hours before serving.

Although there is alot of work but it was kinda fun to make all the different color of pancakes layers. The colors were vibrant (especially the beetroot and blueberries) and the pancakes smells great when it was slowly cooking on the pan. However, it wasn't as beautiful as I would have expected. First of all, the pandan extract which I prepared for the green layers came out as dull faint green, guess I should prepared it at least a night before so that it would be concentrated. The cream cheese was quite runny, its highly advice to add gelatin. But the killer was the pancake itself, imagine the usual McD breakfast's pancakes, but times 5 layers, its very thick and carbo-ish, I felt so full even after just 1 slice, so i guess its not so suitable for baby. The pancake itself doesn't have much taste compare to cake, most of the flavors actually came from the cream cheese. 

So I end up with big pancakes good for 20 people to eat but no idea what to bake for my nephew birthday. fret not, I will reveal what I finally bake for my nephew in my next post, stay tune. 

Baking Addiction 4: Chocolate Walnut cake

Two weeks ago I made a Chocolate Walnut Cake to bring to church. The recipe requires multitasking- mixing, baking, toasting etc. So you can imagine I'll be holding a whisk or a spatula while running around like a headless chicken in the kitchen. But I have to say that it is a straightforward recipe which can never goes wrong. By just using good quality of chocolate compound, you can almost guaranteed that the cake will be yummyliscious. I usually use the local manufactured Beryls Gourmet dark chocolate compound and not some expensive imported goods. You will be surprised that its just cost RM15.80 for 1 kg. Frankly you can make at least 5 cakes with such a big amount of chocolate. 

Well, I dont know whether its a girl thing or what, but I am obsessed about Chocolate. For me its the most versatile food in the whole world.  If you are health (or weight) conscious, just grab a dark chocolate bar rather than Snickers. Dark chocolate has tons of antioxidants which is great for heart, skin and release some chemicals called serotonin in your brain that makes you feel like you're in love! So ditch you bf/gf and start munching chocolate :)

I made my chocolate cake based on www.joyofbaking.com. You can get the full recipe here.

Chocolate Cake:

1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour

1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar

1/4 cup (25 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup (75 grams) unsalted butter, melted

1 cup (240 ml) warm water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 177 degrees C and place rack in center of oven
2. In an ungreased 8 inch (20 cm) square cake pan, stir together the flour, sugar, sifted cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt
3. Add the melted butter, water and vanilla extract. With a fork, mix all the ingredients together until well blended
4. Bake in preheated oven for about 30 minutes, or until the cake springs back when lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

For Walnut, you can buy at any baking store, I bought mine from Bagus Melawati, it costed me around RM10.50 for a 500g pack. In actual, you maybe just need 1/3 of it for the cake, so just keep the rest for other nutty dishes/desert. Lightly toast the walnut in a hot pan without oil. Caution not to burn the nuts! Once its cooled down just crushed it to smaller pieces, and spread half of it on top of the cake. Sprinkle the rest of the nuts after adding the chocolate frosting.

Chocolate frosting

170 grams dark chocolate, chopped

80 grams of unsalted butter, room temperature

Basically, you just have to put the butter in the microwave, zap with high heat until it melted, took out and add in the chocolate, microwave on high heat again for 2 minutes, stir unmelted chocolate in the butter until its dissolved evenly and pour it on top of the cake. You can do this the "proper way" by melting the chocolate and the butter together in a glass bowl on top of a pot of boiling water. But I find this really tedious plus I have cracked a glass bowl due to the high temperature of the pot. Do you know that Chocolate is technically responsible for the invention of microwave?

Scientists were experimenting with micro waves in hopes of creating better radar detectors and in the wake of World War II, scientists were testing devices called magnetrons. A scientist named Percy Spencer entered the lab with a chocolate bar in his pocket and realized it quickly began to melt. Spencer then realized that the magnetron could potentially be used to cook food.  

Read the full article here.

Anyway, back to the recipe. I've improvised the recipe of the chocolate frosting by leaving out the fresh cream, which causes the chocolate frosting to solidify on top of the cake, well, the texture is abit different from the usual Chocolate Walnut cake, but nevertheless its still tasty. ;)  

Baking Addiction 3: Peach tray bake with cheesecake ripple

I baked this cake for Easter lunch at church. 

My friend was pestering me for the name of the cake, but I can only vaguely remember it sounded something like cream cheese with cake in the recipe. So in the end I told her its "CREAM CHEESE CAKE lah!" :)  I think because the texture of the cake was rather soft and a bit wet, she tried to figure out whether its a  pudding or a cake from the name itself. 

So now let me reveal its actual name, by the recipe owner. "Plum tray bake with cheesecake ripple", except that I didnt use Plum/ berries, I used canned peach, which is easy to get from any stores and much more economical.  

Originally this is how it looks with red berries. 

Red berries tray bake with cheesecake ripple

And this is my version:

Peach tray bake with cheese cake ripple

For those who loves cheese, this cake will quench your cheese thirst immediately, because its super creamy and cheesy! I tasted kinda sweet due to the sweetened peach. But I think the cream cheese taste basically  goes well with any type of fruits. 

It makes me super happy that one of my friend loved it and asked for extra serving to bring back home. Although I had only started to bake less than a year ago (after my kitchen was fully renovated), but I absolutely understand that why many felt that cooking / baking for others is a pleasant and enjoyable chore rather than burden. 

Some may enjoy the process itself, but definitely not me. There were so many dishes to wash, so many utensil scatters everywhere, so many ingredients to measure, and painstaking amount of details to follow in recipe. Talking about measurement, Gosh how i HATE it! Some of the recipes use grams, some use cups, then there is ounce, tablespoon, teaspoon etc. I need to harmonize all the measurement even before baking itself. Prior to this, I used to baffle at how Americans like to use "cup" to measure, how do they know what is the size of the cup I use? If the size of my cup is not the same as the recipe writer's cup , then it wouldn't be accurate at all. And then one day while I was shopping around in the baking supply store, I saw these colorful measuring cups and spoons of different sizes tied together with a string. It was only then that I realized that the cup used for measuring is not the cup which is used for drinking. * paiseh *

Anyway, what I meant to say is that my enjoyment of baking came from other's enjoyment of eating the stuff which I've baked. When someone takes a bite out of the cake I poured my heart into and smiles in satisfaction, it makes me feel like gold. In fact, whenever Peter complements the food which I've cooked, it makes me light and fluffy inside. I believe that the love of food is in everyone, and the fact that my food makes people happy, makes me happy too. 

Now, here comes the recipe:

Cheesecake ripple:
200g cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or extract
3 tablespoons caster sugar

Cake:
3 eggs
175g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (175g) light brown sugar, packed
1 ½ cups (210g) all purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
I can of sweetened peach

• Preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter an 8inch shallow baking pan, line with baking parchment 
• In a medium bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese until soft and creamy. Add the vanilla extract and caster sugar and beat until smooth. Set aside. 
• Place the eggs, butter, brown sugar, flour, baking powder, salt and vanilla in a separate bowl. Beat for about 2 minutes until pale and creamy. 
• Spread half of the cake batter mixture onto the base of the prepared pan, then dollop half of the cream cheese mixture over it, spreading an uneven swirl through the base mixture. Scatter with half of the peach. Spoon the remaining cake batter on top and dot with the rest of the cream cheese. 
• Bake for about 45 minutes until risen and just firm to touch – when cooked, the surface of this tray bake should feel just firm to the touch, but bear in mind that it will firm-up slightly as it cools; if over baked, it will lose its moist texture. 
• Scatter with the remaining peach on top of the cake and leave to cool in the pan before refrigeration. Refrigeration is important as it makes the cake moister and firmer. It will taste dry if you immediately eat after bake

Baking Addiction 2: Fruit Tart and Chocolate Indulgence

A few days ago, my friend invited me to her place at Bukit Antarabangsa for house warming. I promised her that I will bring some desert. And since that day onwards, I had read hundreds of recipe and planned the execution of the desert in my head to every minute of detail.

In the end I decided to go with my version of Secret Recipe's chocolate indulgence. 

If you never have this cake before, then I tell you you have yet to know what a good chocolate cake truly means. My sister and I absolutely love secret recipe's chocolate Indulgence. It is made of great chocolate cake, layered with chocolate and cream ganache, and finally covered with chocolate glaze. The contrast of the texture and the depth of different types of chocolate will definitely send you to the moon and back. 

Back in those days, my sister used to travel very often to KL for training. Whenever we met up, one thing which we never failed to do was to have a piece of Secret Recipe's Chocolate Indulgence. Sometimes we will packed a piece of the cake and brought it to the hotel room, then shared it together while lying on the bed and talking. Even when Secret Recipe finally expanded their cake business to Miri, the habit of sharing a piece of Chocolate Indulgence whenever she is in KL still holds true. I guess what truly precious is the moments of sharing something great with the love ones.

I've attempted this cake once. My extended family loved it although i find it a great challenge to slice through the chocolate cake into two layers and then re-assembling it back with chocolate and cream ganache in between. The first time I've managed to make 3 layers, but this time I only did 2 layers, as the cake is a bit brittle.

I used a simple moist chocolate cake mix for the cake layer but added a few teaspoon of dark cocoa powder to increase the depth of the chocolate.  The more difficult part was the ganache, I've adapted the recipe from a food blogger, see here. 

Light Whipped Ganache Filling

• 113gm dark chocolate (i used Beryl’s Dark Compound Chocolate)
• 58 + 174gm whipping cream
• ½ tsp vanilla essence

1. Place mixing bowl in freezer 

2. Place dark choc with 58gm whipping cream in a container over some hot water to melt the chocolate in cream. Make sure the chocolate has fully melted in the cream and let it cool down, but still fluid.

3. Remove bowl from freezer and beat whipping cream until traces of beater marks shows distinctly. Scrape in the chocolate mixture and vanilla and beat until cream mounds softly (like whipped cream). 

Now the challenge here is to not over whipped, as it will turn grainy. Which was exactly what I did. It still tasted great, but less presentable. Next was the whipped cream frosting. GOSH IT WAS A MESS. It involve simple ingredients of 240ml of heaving whipped cream, 1/2 teaspoon of vanila essence and 20 grams of granulated white sugar. Whipping was made easy with hand mixer, however to pipe and spread the whipped cream over the cake was horrible. I end up messing the entire kitchen counter.

Well, this was not my favourite piece but it was ok. If I can do it better than Secret Recipe then they better hire me k. ;)

At last minute, I've also made a super easy and  foolproof fruit tart. I saw this prepared tart crust from the baking store and cant resist to bring it home. Basically there is only 3 components, the crust, cream filling and fruits.

You can actually get all the ingredients off the shelf from the baking store, there is even this just-pour-in-water-instant-custard-mix. But I  end making my own custard cream and I didnt regret the decision. It was simple plus I can tweak the recipe according to the taste I like. Again, i followed the recipe from joyofbaking.com. Now this is what you need. 

Pastry Cream 

• 300 ml milk (whole or 2%)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla essence
• 3 large egg yolks
• 50 grams granulated white sugar
• 20 grams all-purpose flour
• 20 grams corn starch

See the video below for the demonstration. Its has an elaborated procedure, however I find it was foolproof and seriously, its only custard, not rocket science. 

Well, again, assemble everthing once the cream cool off. You can basically add any fruit which you like, but I only have preserved peach with me. Keep it refrigerated to solidify the custard filling further.

Mini fruit tart, simple yet satisfaction guaranteed. ;)

Till next time!

Baking Addiction1: Caramel Brownie

It has almost become a norm that there will be some photos /post of my baking addiction after every weekend.

So here comes my most recent (last Saturday) spur of the moment caramel brownie. How the combination came about is simply because i love brownie and i love caramel, separately on its own. Well, what's the harm of combining two of my favourite food into one? I'll get double happiness!

I never realized that it is so simple to make caramel sauce. It was so easy and fast that I cant believe people willing to spend like 20 over bucks for a bottle of caramel sauce. But bear in mind that, caramel sauce is definitely not for health-cautious people. Its made of all the fatty ingredients: SUGAR, BUTTER and CREAM!!!

I followed this simple recipe from Youtube. 

1. Simmer 1 cup of granulated sugar over low heat in a pot until the sugar turns into brown liquid. Keep stirring using a whisk to prevent the layer underneath from burning

2. Move the pot away from the stove and add in 6 tablespoon of unsalted butter

3. whisk until dissolved, add in cream, continue whisking until it turn into creamy brown caramel sauce. 

4. Cool it down for 5 minutes then pour it into air tight jar

The end product tasted exactly like the off the shelf caramel sauce from supermarket. I add a teaspoon of it to my coffee and it tasted like Starbucks coffee. * floating on cloud nine * 

For the brownies, I followed recipe from my favourite baking website, www.joyofbaking.com. I love the fact that the baker gives very detailed description, no room for ambiguous.  

This is a very moist brownie recipe, if you like dense and rich texture, then this recipe is the perfect one! You can get the details of the recipe at http://www.joyofbaking.com/brownies.html. The only part which I have improvised was the type of chocolate. I used dark compound chocolate and dark cocoa powder (Vanhouten) instead of the semi-sweet ones. Well, do cut down the sugar portion if you want it to be less sweet. For some reason, the recipe created by the Caucasian are usually pretty sweet by Asian (or maybe its only me) standard. Maybe they have a sweeter tooth than us. ;)

So here comes the end product.

The rick chocolate brownie drizzled with caramel sauce, a match made in heaven. The plating above is for photo-shooting purpose, the plate below is for my consumption.

With extra caramel sauce!!!!

The way to a man's heart is through his stomach

Do you ever see a photo of your love ones that perfectly represents exactly what they look like to you? That perfectly conveys the way you see them in real life?

This is one of those photos.

Doesn't he look very much "Peter" in the photo? 

I know, my husband is a simple person to please, he is happy as long as there is good food. However bear in mind as well that a hungry husband is an angry husband. So woman, work your way to his heart through his stomach!!

Anyway, cooking and baking is part of my routine now. In fact, i enjoy weekend baking so much that sometimes I rather stay in the kitchen the whole day because that's the only time in the week that I can spend long hours with my precious oven. 

This is a baked cheesecake with blueberries and strawberries. I love the hint of the cream cheese at the first bite of the cake. I've over baked the cake slightly as the texture was a bit crumble. However, it become much more solid and firm after refrigerated overnight. 

The vanilla muffins i baked last weekend. Not too sweet, zero butter, very light and filling. 

I also baked a chocolate pound cake layered with chocolate ganache and a coffee cream cheese layered with butter cake (couldnt find the photos) sometimes ago. I know thats damn lot of cheesecakes but i couldn't help it, cheesecakes are my favourite!

Anyway, I bought some remikin last week. Contemplating to try out panna cotta or creme brulee soon, will definitely post some photos ;)  

The Undomestic Godess

My oven is fuming and blazing since Christmas. 

Blueberry muffins, oh and my latest addition of dunno-what-plant-is-it to my gardening (with no garden) collection.

During New Year's holiday, i made a batch of blueberry muffin, with FRESH blueberry, impressive or not, hahaha ... The other day, Peter went all the way getting his hand dirty kneading dough and baking bread. Do check out the Basic bread recipe for details.   

According master Jamie Oliver, its just 6 simple steps of :

Stage 1: making a well

Stage 2: getting it together

Stage 3: kneading!

Stage 4: first prove

Stage 5: second prove, flavouring and shaping

Stage 6: cooking your bread

Sounds simple right, but truth be told, its more expensive and extremely time consuming to bake your own bread rather than just went to bakery at the corner of the road to buy a freshly made loaf of bread. Its only cost a penny and is equally good (or even better) with home made. However, its a different kind of satisfaction I would say. To eat from the fruit of your labour, literally. Oh, and it gives you great muscle exercise with all the kneading and mixing too!

We made a grilled chicken sandwich with the bread. hmm..hmmm... delicious. 

I was so into the baking stuff that the other day i bought this chick flick book by Sophie Kinsella named "The Undomestic Goddess". I can totally echo with the main character Samantha Sweating. She is a successful attorney but a total workaholic who did a major blunder in her career and went down all the way to zero. To make things worse, she become a housekeeper by mistake. 

I like the way how the author put this smart women (with flighty thoughts) into a beyond imaginary circumstances and come out better than everyone could have think of. There is this funny scene which describes her first bread baking experience. She had a total nervous breakdown when the kneading is going no where and to make it worse, she has to wait for the yeast to make the bread rise. In her own words:

"I look at the bowl, trying to think miracles. But it isn’t working. I can’t feel calm or serene..... I used to be in control of my time to the minute. To the second. And now I’m supposed  to stand here, in an apron, waiting for a...fungus?"

Yeast = fungus, priceless!

I was literally laughing out loud. but a couple of pages after, i was on the verge of shedding tears. 

".... A yeasty smell is rising up. I open my eyes to see a  loaf of bread in my arms. Proper bread. Real, proper bread like you’d see in a baker’s window. Fat and plump and golden-brown, with faint striations and a crusty, almost flaky top. It smells so delicious I can feel my mouth watering. 

“Tell me that’s nothing,” says Iris, squeezing my arm. “You made that, sweetie. And you should be proud of yourself.” 

Something hot is wadding my throat as I clutch the warm loaf. I made this bread. I made it. I, Samantha Sweeting, who couldn’t even microwave a packet of soup. Who gave up seven years of her life to end up with nothing, to be wiped out of existence. Who has no idea who she even is anymore. I made a loaf of bread. Right now I feel like this is the only thing I have to hold on to."

I guess that's the meaning of comfort food. When you pour all the hard works and love into whatever you cook/ bake, the food will comfort your soul in return. Its almost like a cleansing and rejuvenating process. Anyway, now you know i have a soft spot for stuff like this. ;) 

Its Christmas season

2 more days before Christmas come. Hooray!

I know Christmas has been commercialised pretty much to the extent of maximum nowadays, and heck Jesus is not even born exactly on 25th of December. BUT, i still cant contain the bursting joy in me, knowing that end of the year is coming and this is the time for friends and family to come together and celebrate the fruits of labour which they have harvested throughout the year.

Anyway, in the spirit of Christmas, i shall share with you what Peter and I have done with our Oven for the past few weeks.

In Clockwise, 1. our first roast chicken (stuffed with lemon), its super juicy and easy

2. My raisin and nutty chocolate bar, its easy to make but its too sweet!

3. My first chocolate butter cookies, again its too sweet, will use dark chocolate next time.

Oh, the gals and I had a good time at Plan B the other day, it has a very hip bar-semi restaurant look and its perfect for hang outs!

We ordered a salted beef sandwich (which has a very good texture and taste!), carbonara (very very CHEESY and CREAMY), Morocon lamb pie (the meat comes in chunks but the lamb taste is a little tad too strong to our liking) and the grilled cheese burger (perfect!!)

Cakes, cakes and cakes!!! Happy birthday to our gal Elena!

Ps: See Kohyee with her forever busy with iphone pose

That's all for now, Merry Christmas to all!

"I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month." ~Harlan Miller

Gourmet Pizza making

Peter and I love to cook. It was a joint interest which we have developed across the years of being together. However, both of our mothers never really taught us how to cook when we are young. I suspected it was because they scared that we will trashed and burnt their precious kitchen. Hence, we grew up thinking that cooking was only meant for housewife, and the only cooking skill which we mastered was boiling instant noodles.

Then somewhere in between our instant noodles and scramble egg (which supposed to be sunny side up in the first place), Jamie Oliver started his naked chef series, and then Gordon Ramsey's Hells kitchen came along, and then Nigella Feast.... Suddenly, cooking seems like a cool and posh thing to do. Man who gets his hand dirty kneading pasta dough looks masculine, and ladies in apron oozing a sense of sexiness all over. So weeks after weeks, Peter and I were fixated on the cooking shows showing on Travel Living Channel.  And strangely enough, the cuisine which caught our attention was the Italian. 

Peter loves anything and everything when it comes to Italian cuisine. At first we went shopping around for herbs. Rosmary, dill, basil were the common items in our shopping cart whenever we went to Cold storage. Then Dolmio or Prego was forever vanished from our dictionary when Peter started to make his own pasta sauce. Before we even realizing it, Italian words/ phases dominated our vocabulary - al dante, il prosciutto, al fungi, pomidori etc. And it was really fun, it felt like we are learning another culture itself through its food. 

A month ago, Peter and I subscribed to a 3.5 hours of Gourmet Pizza making class at The Cooking House. We enjoyed the whole process as this is the first time we make our own pizza from scratch! 

Here comes the stainless steel worktop and my happy husband who is eager to start! 

Mixing, kneading then the dough was left for setting (for around 20 mins), no picture of kneading as its impossible to take picture with the flour sticking on our hand. The dough puffed up nicely after a while and it was used for 4 different type of pizza. Basically its just mixing different type of ingredient either on top / into the pizza bread. 

Pizza Dolci is a sweet pizza with orange marmalade and fruits. We use alot of mashmallows, preserved can fruits such as peaches and the binding element was cream cheese. It was something new for us as we didnt know that the same pizza dough can be used for fruits top ups as well.

Pizzete Fritte is mini fried pizza with tomato salsa and shaved parmesan cheese. Its basically bruchetta but with pizza dough instead of baguettes/ French bread. The freshly prepared salsa was superb and i like the acidic taste of balsamic vinegar along with the salty taste of the parmesan cheese.

Calzone Al Salmone Affumicato is the infamous folded or stuffed pizza with smoke salmon, tomato, cheese and capers. Out of the pizzas, we love this the most as its easy to make (basically its a BIG curry puff except its filled with salmon and cheese instead of sardin with potatoes). The calzone tasted so good and I love the crunchy bready texture and the fragrant smoke salmon with chives.

Before and after (baked to perfection)

Calzone Al Salmone Affumicato, yummy.

The last but not least was the Pizza Quattro Stagioni (4-in-1) - Mushroom-cheese, Tomato-anchovies, cheese-basil and artichoke-olive. The chef (cant remember his name) basically dump all the leftovers material into a big pizza dough outlined into 4 quarters, as easy as that. Since we didnt get the chance to do the Pizza Quattro Stagioni, the chef used our leftovers (some tomato / salsa sauce) and cook together with lots of garlic, basil and pepper to make the topping for middle eastern bread with no cheese. 

I have to say its not rocket science to make pizza, and both of us are inspired to make our own pizzas once our kitchen is renovated. So, next time if you visit our home, we will make sure no more cold dominos, it will be homemade fresh from the oven Pizza! :)