Sweets For My Sweet

Desserts are my Achilles Heel. When I go to a restaurant, I look at the desserts first and then try to work backwards to see what my appetite can accommodate and then figure out if I am going to get a starter and a main and what to order. As such, it was difficult when I found out that I have probably more than 50% chance of getting Type 2 diabetes in some stage of my life, because that meant cutting down on the sweets down and watching what I eat even more.

This amuse bouche that we had during the recent Mother's Day lunch was one of my favourite items that day. The pair was encased in gel filled with a chocolate hazelnut and a raspberry liquid resting on a biscuit respectively. These were the best! So interesting to have them pop in your mouth to fill it with a delicious liquid. 

This was a chocolate dessert, I can't remember much about it because I am not a chocolate fan. (Really? There are people who don't like chocolate? Yes, I get that a lot.) But the presentation was really pretty and the small bit of chocolate I tasted was not overly sweet, the way I like my chocolate (if I had to like chocolate).

Who doesn't like an apple tart? This was an unusual one in its presentation, as with all the dishes on the menu really. This restaurant does strive to put a twist on its items, a fusion of western and Japanese and definitely presented in a way that you least expect.

So with a great love for desserts, what can/should I do? "Everything in moderation" does seem to be a good mantra for everything and especially in this case. But on the other hand, the other important quote that comes to mind is "Life is uncertain, eat dessert first."

Habitual Baking

When we were living in Sydney, I used to make this orange cake quite often. It was such an easy recipe and I am a lazy baker. Or maybe call me a creature of habit, that's probably a fairer description. I bake what I am used to and rarely try new stuff. Once something new gets on my list, I just repeat it over and over again.

But somehow I stopped making this orange cake once we moved back to Singapore. I think it was out of necessity that I started baking bread and then the whole creature of habit thing took over and I almost exclusively made bread, interspersed with rock buns, another old-time favourite. Occasionally, I would make a quiche for lunch or dinner. And that was it. Oh except for that couple of times I tried my hand at making hot cross buns.

Anyway I decided to revisit this old friend last weekend. But instead of making the cake in a loaf tin which was how I used to make it in Sydney, I used little cupcake moulds. They cook faster this way and were easier for handing out in the office.

I made myself a nice cup of Earl Grey and had one for dessert right after dinner.

They were well-received in the office today. I think I will reinstate this recipe to the "Frequently Baked" list once more.

It's funny how much our personality traits are deeply embedded in different aspects of our life.

Bostock

Today I learnt what "bostock" is. It is a yummilicious almond toast, so simple but yet tastes so good. It seems like a total misnomer as it sounds like some sort of Bovril stock to me. But anyway, misnomer or not, it is delicious.

Tribute to Some of the Loaves I've Made

There is something satisfying about making your own bread, not just because you save a ton of money not paying for mediocre bread at exorbitant prices at delis and gourmet bakeries, but also the fact that you are actually making something very basic with your hands to feed your family. People feel a loss of satisfaction with the Industrial Revolution, that's a fact. Making something with your hands counts for something...

 The back story to my bread-making was when the New York Times came out with its wonderfully simple No-Knead Bread some 8 or 9 years ago, I was intrigued. Bread-making always seemed to involve a lot of hard, manual work and mysterious workings of yeast and leaveners. Until this No-Knead bread recipe burst out on the internet. The only drawback was it required a cast iron pot or a Dutch oven. I lusted after a Le Creuset cast iron pot since then, frequently checking the prices during sales. However, nothing could make me part with S$500 for a pot, Le Creuset or otherwise, not even bread.
Then fast-forward to 2010 when I started going to the US regularly for work. The opportunity to get my much-coveted Le Creuset Dutch oven arrived. For a little less than half the cost of the same at home, I could get a shiny red pot. I hand-carried my precious cargo from San Jose to San Francisco via Hong Kong to Singapore. And then the break-making started in earnest!

The bubbling of the dough mixture was most satisfying. This meant to me that the magic was working.

Leaving the dough for a 12-hour proof plus another 2-hour makes for a sourdough bread, without the need for a sourdough starter. Another shortcut! I just love this recipe. The Boy also loves this bread and would clamour for this on a weekly basis. I was also eager to cut down the cost per loaf from about $30 to a more normal $10.

I even ventured into the land of bread that required kneading after seeing a picture of the same posted by a friend. So I made these 2 loaves but as they were white bread, they weren't the hit the sourdough bread was, and so I went back to baking what the public demanded.

On a subsequent trip to the US, I even bought a second, slightly smaller Le Creuset pot in orange and I've since used that one more to bake my bread because it gives the dough a better rise because of the proportion.

I've experimented with adding dried cranberries, candied walnuts, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds and dried figs to the dough. Making bread especially the No-Knead bread is easy and enjoyable and helps achieve the satisfaction quotient of making something with one's hands.

Form Over Substance?

Today we were faced with a dilemma. We went to a cafe which serves good muffins of interesting variety and other baked goodies like dark chocolate tarts. The coffee was pretty good too. So what was the problem?

Well, the decor was rustic country meets modern. It was confused and did not go together. The space was long and narrow. The tables were wrought-iron garden furniture style, the hanging lights were contemporary. The wood laminate were light-coloured and looked quite tacky. The shelving were used in an untidy manner and there were stools stored under them. A showcase for cakes and pies was stacked on the shelf backwards so that the employees could open the doors however that meant the customers had to look at the knobs and untidy wires. The airconditioning also dripped.

We struggled with the form over substance issue. Many other cafes looked good but the food was mediocre. This one was the complete opposite. It was not a difficult fix, they need to tidy up and decide what look they want. I say ditch the garden furniture and fix the drippy airconditioning. And tidy up!

Checking In

A week after I wrote about my belated resolutions, I am so happy to report that I finally got off my arse and walked the 3.8 km home one day after work in 35 minutes and went back to yoga today after a 5 month hiatus. I am pretty sure my wrists were bruised from all the downward dogs I had to do because holding up my weight with my twig-thin wrists (my arms are disproportionately thin compared to the rest of me) for all that prolonged time was no easy feat. However, I did survive the 90 minutes and had such a great sweat detox I felt so good after.

I also made 3 micro loans on www.kiva.org and helping others to help themselves is a fantastic feeling. We have so much and so many people have so little. We spend $50 on a meal and that could be a month's salary for many living in abject poverty. We can all do more, and be content with much less at the same time.

And I also went back to my bread-making, with this cranberry and walnut loaf baked in my brand new Valencia orange Le Creuset dutch oven.

My life is finally moving back to a good and calm track.

Loaf Of Bread

Finally made my first 2 loaves of no knead bread. The first loaf was so delicious that I had a request from G to make another one that night when the boys finished the whole loaf with cheese, olive oil and fig vinegar while watching the rugby.

The only thing was the loaf did not rise big and round when I put it into the oven. The yeast worked when I let it rest overnight for 18 hours and the second "nap" of 2 hours. But it came out to be a relatively flat loaf. I am wondering if I had not used enough flour as I followed the metric rather than the original imperial measurements. Ok a quick check using the online cooking conversion shows that it might be too much rather than not enough. So perhaps I need MORE yeast as well?

Anyway the flatness of the bread did not detract from its yumminess. The second loaf was more sourdough than the first, with a much more chewy and wetter texture. It would probably be delicious toasted too.

Something tells me I will be baking this bread very often.

No Knead Bread - Or The Long Wait For The Le Creuset Dutch Oven

I had been coveting a Le Creuset dutch oven ever since the no-knead bread recipe appeared first of all in a NY Times article all those years back. Was it 8 or 9 years ago? Or maybe 7. I forget but I remember thinking, "bread, no kneading required, mmmm.... what a great idea." All I need is a dutch oven which costs an arm and a leg, that's all. And that would be the cost of how many hundred loaves? So that idea got shelved, I moved to Sydney where I had access to the best breads known to mankind. After having the luxury of these great breads, wonderful varieties, for about A$5 a loaf, which although not cheap, seemed quite reasonable considering the warm happiness it brought me - I left Sydney after 4 years. And then started getting withdrawal symptoms not just from missing the coffee, but also the bread.

I checked the sales diligently at the housewares section just to see if the price of a Le Creuset dutch oven has plummeted for some unknown reason. No such luck. I continue to search for decent bread in Singapore and found a passable version in the Gardenia Walnut country loaf at S$3. Then on my last trip to San Jose where I organised a shopping trip to the outlets, I found my much longed-after RED Le Creuset dutch oven for about S$200, possibly about half the price for the same thing in Singapore. I packed it well with t-shirts cradling it in its box and hand-carried it back on the flight.

Now I have the equipment, I need to search for that recipe and start baking. In the meantime, it is sitting on the stove, resplendid in its redness.

Nature And Food

We have a waterfall in our backyard (literally)! A charming handwritten scrawl in chalk on the pavement helped orientate the unfamiliar towards the lookout point where the waterfall is. The (minor) roar of the water was unmistakable. We just need to find the path that leads down to it. There are lots of bushwalking possibilities in the neighbourhood, we just need to find a map of all the walking trails and start planning our new activities. Life is all about change, if nothing else, isn't it?

Well and some things never change. Love for my food that is. Being our first real weekend in the new house (last weekend was spent unpacking and clearing the bomb site so that didn't really count), I decided that we were going to make pizzas for dinner tonight. Somehow, my pizza which was on the pizza stone didn't come out as nicely cooked as G's which was on the pizza baking tray. But I love, love, love the anchovies. I just wish that I also had smoked oysters on mine, the smell of the anchovies just triggered off a craving for that. G reckons my body is zinc-deficient. I think that is right, I used to have regular cravings for smoked oysters and used to open up a tin and eat it right there and then with a fork on the spot.

Now listening to the rhythm of the patter of rain outside, it is such a nice comforting sound to end a good day.

Food And Friends

Friday night dinner: Curry chicken pie with rocket salad. Home-made. By me. Yummy.

Saturday lunch: Spaghetti at the organic cafe in SH. Chef looks and sounds Malay. Possibly Indonesian. Chilli, tomatoes, olives, topped with rocket. Slight trace of anchovies. More would be better. Still delicious.

Sunday picnic: Leo's birthday cake. Made by his loving and innovative parents. Crowning the bright green cake was such a cute little train made out of fudge. Running on tracks which said "2" which is how old he is. Even though he insists he is 3. He is a year ahead of himself.

Here is Leo. Make like a monkey, Leo. Leo cannot stop repeating, "monkey, monkey, monkey" after me. His vocabulary has expanded quickly over the last few months.

Leo is cute, cute, cute.

Sweet Potato Scones

In the end, I decided to stick to a scone recipe and made sweet potato scones. The sweet potato mash was sweet in itself and so I stuck to the 2 teaspoon sugar per the sweet potato scone recipe, even though the recipe for regular scones called for half a cup of sugar. When done, the scones weren't sweet, it was almost a savoury scone.

It brings to mind when I made curry puffs the last time, the filling tasted spicy enough but when wrapped in pastry and baked, it wasn't spicy in the least. It was even a little bland. So same theory applies from spicy to sweet I guess. I should have guessed the 2 teaspoons of sugar were just not going to be enough to make a difference. But I guess with jam, it will taste just right, not overly sweet. And this just about kickstarts my scone-making horizon. I'm going to try different varieties next weekend, and maybe even host a Devonshire Tea soon.

A Merry Christmas In Christchurch

Our Christmas sojourn to Christchurch was like a quick whizz round the block, although in that time, we managed to eat ourselves silly. But not quite as silly as those trips to Singapore, I mean greed is a relative concept, isn't it?

There were 3 parties in the 5 days we were there, I guess it would have been rude to reject yummy, festive food during the silly season, especially when one is meeting the entire extended clan of relatives, family friends and neighbours all at the same time. And so I was polite. Very polite actually.

Everything edible laid out on the dining table seems to be home-made (what a different and wonderful generation!), from all the lovely sweet treats, to the pinwheel sandwiches to the salmon roulade (a delicious and yet easy-to-make spreading thingy in a roll hence the name) which I've committed to memory for the next party . N's 70th birthday cake, the Christmas cake, our wedding cake! Yes, we scored a traditional wedding cake from this trip, and G got the traditional cake he had wanted, made by his mum. What a relief that we don't have to be sampling more cakes in the next few days in order to make our choice. Now all I need is to wizard up some cake toppers, my choice of decoration would be some red satin ribbon rosettes, G's choice of text would be "Last Day of Freedom". A lovely combination.

We bought the materials for making the corsages and buttonholes, browsed through H's gardening books and discussed flowers. We wandered round her garden and admired the colourful plants and flowers blooming, H is going to rehearse making a corsage over the next few days with the charming little rosebuds she had picked. Another item ticked off the checklist. Ah, delegation is such a wonderful thing, especially to competent resources...

So we enjoyed our first Christmas together, in Christchurch, surrounded by family and lots of homemade goodies. We came back laden with pressies and wrapped in love and good cheer, for the holiday season and beyond.

A Few Successes

I have never had a falafel until I moved to Sydney and met G. He who loves Lebanese food, could not believe that I have not been introduced to the wonderful world of falafels. The falafels at Xeno on Crown Street are the best, even in my limited Lebanese food experience because they are moist and plump and freshly made only when you place an order. When you bite into one, the yellowish-green inside is just heaven. For a meal, I like the falafel roll, 3 fat falafels nesting in a piece of Lebanese bread with dollops of hommus, pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, onions (I opt out of onions), tabbouleh and fresh mint leaves.

Simple, cheap and a great snack or meal in itself. And an exposure to new culinary experiences.

From tasting like home-made to really home-made is this fish pie that G made for lunch today. We had an abundance of sweet potato and pumpkin mash and I suggested making a shepherd's pie except not with meat. Well actually I wanted it with meat like a REAL shepherd's pie but G wouldn't come over to the dark side, so G made a fish (fisherman's?) pie, making a bechamel sauce for the fish and topping it up with the mash. Another success.

I felt like some baking therapy tonight and made some (adult) kahlua-flavoured cookies. Mmm, a taste of this experiment shows that this too, was a success.

Huffin' And Puffin' Cakes

I was a little heavy-handed with the baking powder today. Instead of the usual 2 teaspoons, I think I tipped the equivalent of 4, and so the 2 little cakes huffed and puffed and the loaf had a crack pushing through the surface, looking like the aftermath of a 6.2 on the Richter scale. As a deviation from my normal taste/style, I had also thrown in a fistful of mixed fruit although technically it was an orange cake (or 3), and pushed nubs of glace cherries as garnish on the top. G gave it the thumbs up and even though it was not sweet enough, he polished 2 slices off with cream cheese and strawberry jam.

Upon checking my post-it note at work the following day, I realised that I had all the proportions completely wrong - too much flour, not enough sugar, too much custard powder, too little memory power obviously!

The 2 legal eagles at work who devoured one of the cakes I brought in, claimed that it was still good, that sometimes accidents weren't always bad, and this was one of those "happy accidents". This verdict probably earned them a lifetime membership on my "friends to feed" list.

Winter Orange Cake

With a dinner invitation for Friday, I decided I would bake an orange cake for dessert as my contribution. This used to be one of my favourite baked treats for the folks at work, with oranges being abundant in the winter, but somehow I have been slack for a while.

Finally with a catalyst, I decided to try out a new orange cake recipe. Just randomly googled up and selected one based on my whim and fancy. And went to work. In a jiffy, I had 3 cakes, a loaf for the dinner and 2 ramekins for our own consumption.

Citrus scents are hard to resist. G begged for a cake (despite Thursday night being a healthy diet night and not quite off the Nazi regime) and wolfed down three-quarters of it, leaving me with a measly quarter. Was quite a nice recipe, it was moist without being overly buttery and not as sweet as I had feared.

I'm definitely going to be baking more orange cakes before the winter is over.

Finally Friands

Finally. Friands. Fresh.

Ok, granted they don't look like the traditional friand and that's because I didn't feel like shelling out another $12 for another baking tray just so the final product conformed to our notions of what a friand looks like when my scalloped cases would do the job as well.

Taste-wise, they tasted like friands. These are orange friands, I had topped them off with orange zest as well. I am quite pleased with my efforts and for finally getting round to it. They are really easy to make, easier than cupcakes as there is no creaming of butter with sugar involved which is the painstaking part. The butter is melted, cooled down and merely stirred into the mixture.

This opens up endless opportunities to explore making different friand varieties. I can't wait.

Not Meant To Be

I'm beginning to think that I and friands are never meant to be. With my good intentions brewing for a long time, followed by researching easy-to-make recipes online and finally procuring the elusive bag of almond meal, I still was unable to produce some evidentiary proof of my friand-making efforts. Thwarted tonight by insufficient eggs (not realising that the one egg (which I had so carefully saved) wouldn't do, but I needed 4 egg whites), I turned my attempt towards the tried and tested (and loved by all) rock buns. With a twist - as I've soaked the mixed fruit overnight in strong Early Grey tea.

So friands take a back seat, until I stock up on eggs.

Back To The Orange

Last night I recalled my first winter in Sydney, where I faithfully shopped at Paddy's Market every Sunday, buying copious amount of whatever fruit that was on sale that weekend.

Very often it was oranges in the fall and winter time. I ended up baking a lot of orange cake, which was really moist and delicious and well-received in the office. With autumn just round the corner, the crisp air reminded me of that orange cake.

Today at teatime, a colleague asked if any more baked goodies were forthcoming from my oven. Flattery would get you everywhere, and so it was decided that an orange cake would fulfil that request. After a long lapse, the results turned out a little different - less moist, less sweet, less buttery. On the positive side, perhaps healthier?

But on the whole, still tasty, I'm sure the folks at work won't be complaining tomorrow.

Friand Craving

I've always liked madeleines. And could polish off six at one go if unrestrained. Then I moved to Sydney and started on friands which tasted a little like madeleines. I like their shape, their taste, their texture. I like the fact that they are quite little and don't fill you up so that you feel stuffed up to your gills the way muffins make me feel.

Tonight I've been having a friand craving. I found out that another name for friand is the financier. I didn't realise that cos I've had financiers before in Singapore. They have a different shape from the friand. The financier is rectangular somewhat resembling a gold bar, hence its name. The friand is somewhat oval with a spill-over muffin top.

Two more days to the weeknd. Plans? I'm going to try to make some friands.

Chestnut Conserve

Last Saturday, we spent an inordinate amount of time perusing the shelves in an Italian deli. Bottles and bottles of interesting jams, preserves, chutneys, relishes lined up in rows. We lovingly caressed the bottles, turning them over, carefully studying the labels, discussing the merits of each. Rhubarb, burnt fig were amongst the more unusual ones.

What finally caught my eye was the chestnut conserve. I immediately recalled (albeit vaguely) in my nightly foodblog reading sometime back, some interesting entries - probably Japanese or French, involving this ingredient. That's what I want to do too (although exactly what is the "that" I wasn't too sure at that point standing in the deli).

I did some research on the "that" and I think it is a chestnut souffle at this point.