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. My Tasting Palette .
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. In celebration of food and dining experiences . |
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Exploring and discovering new restaurants Dining and chilling out with my loved ones Baking and cooking over the weekends Sharing my love for food with others
Vanilla bean pods (one can never have enough) Valrhona Cocoa powder Valrhona chocolate Macarons from Laduree and Pierre Herme Madelines mold Pretty cake stands (I only have one and only one) YUZU from Japan! (They taste great in almost anything) A food tour to Italy and France Opportunity to study at Le Cordon Bleu |
Monday, April 30, 2007 Carrot Cake I decided to try out a new carrot cake recipe and the one from my Jamie Oliver's cookbook sound like a good bet. J and I took a long time with this one as it just has many many steps and many many ingredients. It turned out rather well though we should put less orange juice. (apparently the oranges in London are much smaller.. cause I dont think the one I used was unusually big) I love this icing much more than the one for my usual recipe as it's much more zesty(cause lime is used rather than lemon) and much smoother and creamier (cause of the combination of mascapone cheese and cream cheese).  Carrot walnut cake:my all-time favouriteFriday, April 27, 2007 Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake [[ Chocolate Overload]] I was inspired by Nigella Lawson when I watched her Nigella Feast series. That episode was on chocolate heaven and she baked everything chocolatey. So I took out my Nigella Feast book to look at the recipe. Decided on baking the old fashioned chocolate cake which was basically a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Full from lunch, J and I was all set to bake this chocolatey cake. Since I did not have two 17 inch cake tins, we simply baked one layer in my 20 inch cake tin. It turned out really well though the frosting was slightly too sweet.  Nicely baked with its natural cracks After spreading the dark chocolate frosting. Don't you think its gleam is enticing you to eat it? A chocolate cake slice that I devouredOld Fashioned Chocolate Cake Adapted from Nigella Feasts For the cake: 200g plain flour 200g caster sugar 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda 40g best cocoa 175g unsalted butter 2 large eggs 2 tsp vanilla extract 150ml sour cream For the icing: 75g unsalted butter 175g best quality dark chocolate 250g icing sugar 1 tbsp golden syrup 125ml sour cream 1 tsp vanilla extract cut fruits and candy for decoration, optional 1. Take everything out of the fridge so that ingredients can come to foom temp. Preheat oven to 180 deg c. Line and butter a 22cm sandwich tin with a removable base 2. Mix the flour, sugar, the leavening agents and beat in the soft butter untill you have a combined and creamy mixture. 3. Now whisk in the cocoa, sour cream, vanilla, eggs and beat this into your bowl of mixture 4. Place mixture into your cake tin and baked for about 40 minutes( or depending on your oven) 5. REmove the cakes, in their tins to a wire rack and let it cool for 10 minutes before turning out of their tins. 6. To make the icing, melt the butter, chocolate in a good sized bowl over a pan of simmering water. 7. While the chocolate and butter are cooling a little, sieve in the icing sugar. Add the golden syrup, sour cream and vanilla into the mixture and mix well. 8. When you are done, you may need to add a little boiling water or some icing sugar: it depends on whether you need the icing to be runnier or thicker. 9. Spoon the icing on top of the cake and spread it in a swirly texutred. Spread the sides with the remaining icing. Decorate iwth candies and fruits!
Sirloin steak, potato wedges and baked lemon asparagus [[ Fun in the kitchen]] There's more time to bake and cook when the exams have ended. I was craving for vanilla cookies one day so I took out my new cookie cutters to make extra large ones. J and I cooked lunch together on thursday. We had a relatively simple but satisfying 3 course lunch- the pan fried sirloin steak with orange red wine sauce, spiced potato wedges and a baked paperbag of lemon asparagus. =) I'm so glad that I've found a use for my failed orange marmalade(it was a little too watery) but just perfect to be used as a sauce base. =) Here's to more cooking and baking.  Full House!  Sirloin Steak with orange wine sauce  Potato wedges with bacon  Lemon baked asparagus
Monday, April 23, 2007 Nutella Banana Cupcakes [[Nutella Bliss]]
 When my sis message me to look for a recipe for her, I knew I had to ask her to bake this one. For those who don't know my sister, she loves nutella and she adores bananas. (she can eat 3 bananas in a single day. or maybe even in one sitting) I chanced upon this recipe on deliciousdays.com and thought that it must be really interesting. I wish Grace is here to try this 'cause I know she loves banana and chocolate stuff. And so we spent the gloomy and dreary afternoon baking delicious cupcakes and filling the kitchen with smells of melted chocolate and smashed up bananas. I must say that they are really better than I thought they would be. Even for a non-banana eater like me. =) The recipe doesn't use much sugar so it's not so sweet. Good for me though I'm not sure what others would say. Oh yes. another discovery of the day. COOKIE CUTTERS! how I love them. Managed to find these adorable ones from BeautyWorld Center. Of all places. I think it's absolutely cute. I can't wait to bake cookies.  Cookie cutters to die for The naked cupcakes The whole table filled with chocolate frosted cupcakes ***** Nutella Banana Cupcakes (by Delicious days) Makes about 24 medium muffins 2 eggs 125g soft butter 100g sugar 2 large ripe bananas 100g Nutella 100ml milk 1 tsp baking soda 250g flour 2 tsp baking powder 150g (milk) chocolate coating for decoration: nuts, sugar pearls, ... 1 Cream together in a large bowl the eggs, butter and sugar, then fold in squashed banana and the Nutella. Whisk. 2 In a separate bowl, combine milk and baking soda and blend well. Also separately, mix the flour with the baking powder. 3 Now alternately blend in a part of the milk mixture, then a part of the flour mix, part of the milk, … until everything is combined. Hereby you have better control over how the consistency of the dough develops. 4 Now pour batter into greased or paper-lined muffin tins and bake at 180° Celsius (350° Fahrenheit) in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes. Check if the muffins are done by poking in a wooden skewer - it should come out quite dry and almost clean. Put them out of the oven and let them cool down completely. 5 Add a thick layer of (milk) chocolate coating and optionally some decoration (nuts, sugar pearls, …). Saturday, April 07, 2007 second time @ Majestic [[second time @ Majestic]]  sis and I before lunchWe started off with the Peking Duck. (My childhood food!) Initially, I thought that it didnt look too appetising. I think they changed the presentation from the last time when we went. But in any case, it didn't fail me. The skin of the duck was still warm and very crispy. The plum flavoured sauce was a great compliment to that as well.   The third dish I had was the crispy deep fried prawn with wasabi dressing. I thought this as very normal, nothing unexpected. The batter was light and the prawns were not too oily. Wasabi dressing always go well with crispy prawns I feel. So it was already a sure winner. I love the tiny bits of mango that they added to the dish cause it added a little sweetness and a lot of joy in eating.  The fourth dish was a shared one- crispy chicken in thai dressing. My dad wanted to order this one for my sis as she loves chicken. I thought that it would be ordinary but this one is really good. The chicken skin was very crispy yet the chef was able to retain the tenderness of the chicken meat. The dressing was really good I feel- sour and spicy(it's really quite spicy) with a tinge of sweetness from the mango. The fifth dish was one of its signature dishes the pan-fried carrot cake. I don't know how they do it but this was perfect. Without being too oily, all the flavours are captured in the carrot cake pieces. My sis really loves this one  The last dish was the most disappointing of all the dishes- Fried rice with duck meat. I guess from the start duck meat doesn't go well with fried rice. Another thing was that I feel that they could do with more garlic. I simply ADORE garlic especially in fried rice. After a satisfying lunch, we headed to Goodwood park hotel to buy my sis's favourite Durian mousse cake, much to my despair. So there's a huge DURIAN cake in my fridge right now. WAILS |
