random rant..

gah, it's been a stressful two weeks, and when the stress levels rachet up, i start craving my microwave oven. there are tons of recipes i want to try, and ever since i saw a stack of gorgeous mini tart moulds, i've been wanting to bake tartlettes.

These Lime Curd Tarts and Butterscotch Tart, for one (or two), look darned tempting and delish, and these Butter Tarts look soooo sinfuly good, and come with the added benefit that they can be made with a muffin tin.
and speaking of muffins....
These Carrot Cupcakes look totally delicious, and i've already earmarked a orange-almond cake recipe my mum clipped from the newspapers to make into cupcakes. Add to that the fact that there were soooo many cool and exciting recipes that I've seen this week bloghopping, I just wish i knew more people, so that I could keep baking and giving away the food so that I can keep baking and giving and baking....

raar. I want my kitchen!

Cinnamon Chocolate Cupcakes

So this weekend I made cupcakes. There wasn't much in the house to play around with, and I wasn't feeling particularly inspired by any one recipe anyway, but I just wanted to bake something. So, after looking through countless cupcake recipes that all looked delish, and rejecting them because they called for sour cream, yoghurt, buttermilk and etc, I finally found a recipe that called for basic, simple ingredients that I had at home. Got the basic cupcake recipe here, and, was inspired by a bar of expensive but absolutely delish Green and Black's Maya Gold Dark Chocolate, to add a little something to the recipe. The bar is 55% cocoa, so it's not extremely dark, which is nice, and its scented with a light spice mix of nutmeg and cinammon, and a hint of orange flavour. Check out their gorgeous website here. So I added about a tablespoon of ground cinnamon to the recipe, and the hint of spice in the cake was just totally excellent. I topped them with a dark chocolate frosting of butter, cocoa powder and icing sugar, with a half-tablespoon of cinnamon for good measure, and it was just yummy. I really love the way these turned out. :)

a few of my 'favourite' things

Oh my gosh.
I went to Spotlight today, and I saw the most gorgeous plates and such! Not the kind for serving dinner on, but random pretty pieces that I an seriously lusting over.


First there were these nice stripey long plate-things: so pretty! these were really what caught my eye first, simply because they are so colourful. I'm not generally a pastels person, but these are nice. I think they're about $30 though. Whoever said that Spotlight was cheap.

Then there were these pretty, swirly-designed plates; I really like the black one. It's not very clear in the picture, but the pattern is in light blue and light olive, against the black and white it's terribly nice and sophisticated. The white and blue one's not bad either, but I do like the black one better. The only thing is that they're both much too big.

BUT! What I really, really, REALLY fell in love with were these 'frilly' plates:

I can't decide which of them i prefer: the cake stand or the long frilly-edged plate. siigh. I want them! but they cost tooo much for my impoverished wallet to afford.

there were also other really cool cake stands and stuff:

like this cupcake tree...

and this cake stand, decorated with tiny cakes:

And then there were these cool retro-esque colanders, in all the coolest colours. I think they'd go pretty well with whatever kitchenaid you happen to have...


I want some money to go kitchen applicance-shopping!

Instant food

Tonight's dinner was a complete case of cooking-improv, which is what I do most often at home, when I'm hungry for real food, but tdidn't plan to cook so there's not much ready to cook in the fridge (seeing as how my mother is the Queen of Fridge Minimalists). In the past, I've made such self-explanatory dishes as Onion-Cheese Spaghetti (one colour, weird-sounding, but surprisingly ok-tasting), Potato Spinach 'Omelette', Random Vegetable and Tuna-Mayo Omelette "Crepe" and so on. The food was always made from whatever I could scavenge from the fridge, and while no one is likely to ask me for any recipes, they were tasty (to me) miracles. However, tonight's dinner was pretty unbelieveable, even by my super-improv standards.

Behold: Mushroom-and Cheese Soup Pasta, with Garlic Croutons!

yes, instant Campbell's soup powder (Mushroom and Cheese), a slice of processed cheese, water, and Carrefour brand Croutons, with $2 Daiso special pasta (special in because it's about half the length of usual pasta, making it small-pot-friendly).

I'd planned to make mushroom pasta with real mushrooms, sliced and sauteéd with butter, tossed with pasta and a some of the cooking water, but I had sadly kept my mushrooms too long and they were all wet and sticky. Not a good sign.
So, I made pasta with powdered soup.
Surprisingly, it was actually pretty good.

I "parboiled" the pasta for awhile, about 2 minutes, since the package says it takes 4 mins to cook, then drained away the water until there was about 4 cm or so of water covering the pasta. Then, I added the soup powder, and stirred in one individual sized package of butter (probably unneccesary, but I was afraid the sauce'd taste too much like soup), one slice of cheese, and stirred some more. Cooking the 'sauce' with the pasta this way made the sauce 'seep' into the pasta, flavouring it with a nice, mushroom-soup-y taste.

The finished product looked kinda boring, which is why I added the croutons. This is the only thing I wouldn't do the next time, as it made the sauce waaay too salty. I forgot to factor in the fact that the sauce was really a super-concentrated soup, which was nice in terms of texture, but rather salty. So, whilst the croutons added a nice crunch to the whole dish, they made it way too salty.

Nonetheless, I am quite proud of tonight's dinner, and I forsee many such "pasta nights". It's quite a quick way to make dinner; the longest period of waiting was for the water to boil. The sauce could have used a good dose of rough-ground black pepper to add another taste dimension, but overall, no complaints. And, I made this with absolutely no condiments: no salt, no pepper, nothing but indiviually packaged fridge-staples like butter and cheese, and powdered soup. Is it kind of sick that I'm really proud of that?

Well, this weekend was quite a food-filled one, I made Dark Chocolate-Orange Muffins, Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookies, and I tasted a reallllly good cheesecake/brownie thing, and I discovered the greatest thing to snack on. All in just three days. This was one goood weekend, food/kitchen-wise.

The muffins, sadly, could have been better. Taste-wise they were really good; the orange flavour really strong, and the dark chocolate providing a rich but not too sweet foil to the zestiness. They were, however, a little tough, which I at first thought was because I'd mixed them too much, because I'd doubled the recipe to make enough for all the people my mother had "pre-allocated" them to, but then, when I made another half-batch, being careful to not overmix them, they were still tough. sigh. i don't know why. they taste good if you microwave them, though.

The chocolate bits inside get all nice and melty, and yummy. Or, if you don't have a microwave (or are too lazy to put them on a plate that you will have to wash, and walk down one floor and up again), you can blast them with a hairdryer. It works, really!

So, I guess, overall they weren't a complete failure.


The next thing I did were Cinammon Oatmeal Cookies, whilst waiting for the football match to start. These were a bigger success, although it really didn't seem so at first. The recipe called for coconut and oatmeal, but I didn't want coconutty cookies, so I omitted them, which I didn't think would be an issue. Then, the recipe said to drop rounded teaspoons on the sheet, but they expanded to a huuuge size, then flattened to wafer-thinness. I thought it might be because the lack of coconut might have made the dough too thin, so I added two tablespoons more of flour, and reduced the size of the dough balls to half a teaspoon. They didnt get so big (duh), but they were still quite thin, and they were a tad too sweet yesterday night. but today, they taste really good. buttery and chewy, and fragrant with cinnamon and butter. yumm.


So, those were what I made this weekend. what I ate, though, will be another post, because I just have to move on to my work now. buggers.

Shortbread Cookies

When I first saw this recipe for shortbread, I was extreeemely excited, firstly because they looked sooo delicious, and, more importantly, because the recipe was so simple. most shortbread recipes i'd encountered before that had called for chilled butter and rice flour and whatnot, but this one, was basically just butter, sugar, and flour. and boy, is it good. i totally lurrrve this cookie, even though some people have not seemed very impressed to me. this is totally a keeper, to me. i love the way the texture of the cookie is dense and almost velvety, because of the use of icing sugar instead of caster, i think. and although the recipe called for unsalted butter and a pinch of salt, i went ahead with my salted butter, omitting the salt. i think the shortbread might be saltier than if one were to use unsalted butter, but i love the saltiness! not that the cookie is salty per se, but it is faintly salty, which contributes to the buttery fragrance and flavour of the cookie, a deeeelish counterpoint to the sweetness. the only thing about this recipe is the huuge amount of butter used. more than 400g ok! think that's little? it's almost two blocks of butter. yeah. yes, the yield is fairly large, but, seriously, this cookie makes it unable for you to tell yourself that the butter is divided among many many cookies, so each cookie doesn't really have that much butter. this cookie is seriously BUTTERY.
which is partly why it tastes so good with fruit, and even jam. it's delicious with cherries, and plums, and i think it'd go fantastically with strawberries! and oranges. the juicy tartness of both the strawberries and the orange would be a great way to balance the richness of the shortbread. it also makes me crave hot earl grey tea, or really hot black coffee, the kind with no sugar. it's also great with a smear of apricot jam. and raspberry too, i'd bet. mm. i love it, love it, love it.
the next time i make these, i'm going to cut down on the sugar, and roll them out very thin, cut them out in fluted circles, and drizzle/dip them in chocolate. maybe if i ever decide to sell (or rather, if people ever decide to pay me
for my baked goods), or give these as gifts. i think they make verry presentable gifts. and they're fun to make. and your kitchen smells delightfully of butter and vanilla when they're baking. yay. i love this recipe.
and yes, i know that the picture of the cherries is rather random, but i was very happily taking pictures of my yummy cherries just now, and i took some very nice shots, if i do say so myself.

Sweet simplicity

Was browsing through Daiso at Vivo on Monday, and stumbled upon these:


"Sugar Crystal" candy! also known as Rock Sugar, really. Yes, I know, I paid $2 for 120g of rock sugar that costs $0.25 per 100g. But really, this rock sugar isn't totally like those you buy at Chinese shops or the 'herb' section of supermarkets. Each piece of candy is a single, large sugar crystal, not many small ones clustered together, so it doesn't disintegrate halfway in your mouth. Since it's one big crystal, it also doesn't melt as fast, and is hence less sweet than normal, granulated sugar—but this comparison doesn't, of course, mean that I, like, eat sugar. Because I don't. But whatever. The point is, I love my rock sugar sweets!
:)

Sweet nothings

For all that we slam VivoCity for being overhyped and overcrowded (for no good reason at all—see overhyped), the one thing it does have going for it is the availability of yummy candy—albeit overpriced, yummy candy.
For a long while, everyone's go-to candy shop was Candy Empire, which was all good and fascinating and expensive, with festive-looking "promo" price tags that proclaimed prices in a way that tricked many an unsuspecting person into thinking something was a LOT cheaper than it really was. still, Candy Empire had provided us with many a happy munchy, like the delish Jelly Bean Factory Jelly Beans, Freddos, and, in more recent times, these funk-tastic Skittles!

These are Skittles, in special, Limited Edition, Showtime Flavours of Popcorn, Fairy Floss, Bubble Gum, Jam Donut and Toffee Apple:

I'm not quite sure how Jam Donut is a Showtime or Carnival sort of treat, but it is by far, my favourite flavour of the bunch. It had a cinnamon-y, toffee-y fragrance to it, reminding me of cinnamon-sugar dusted Churros, that complemented the fruity, jamy part of it. This was very addictive, and veryy delish.

Popcorn was my next favourite, because it had that weird, distinctive popcorn-jellybean flavour, which I really do love. Even if it didn't really taste like any popcorn I've ever eaten.

A close runner up was Fairy Floss, because it tasted uncannily like candy floss. Yes, I know candy floss is just sugar, but it doesn't taste like just sugar. Perhaps it gets heated as it spins, so that it develops the faintest tinge of burn-sugar-ness? Whatever the reason, the Fairy Floss was quite yummy.

Toffee Apple was quite a let down, because I do love anything with toffee in it, so I was very much looking forward to this one. Sadly, it tasted all of apples, with almost no toffee flavour.

Bubble Gum, I didn't really enjoy, mainly because I don't like Bubble Gum flavoured foods—ice cream, candy, soft drinks, whatever. The Skittle tasted very much like bubble gum, so much so that the first chew was rather unnerving, because for an instant, your brain processes it as bubble gum, not a Skittle, I guess.

Still, I enjoyed these very much, not just because they were yummy, but also because they were pretty.

Vivo also has a new Candy store, but more on that in a later post. :)

The Great Granola Bar Adventure

Well, as you've probably guessed from the title of this post, this weekend's baking venture was making homemade granola bars. And, as you've probably guessed, it was something of a fiasco. Or adventure. I got the original recipe (and idea) from here, but when I got to the supermarket and saw flax seeds, I was rather turned off by the way they looked—for some reason, they reminded me of insects... Also, I couldn't find any puffed brown rice cereal—cereals in Singapore aren't so healthy, I guess—so I got rice crispies instead. To make up for the lack of flax seeds, I got a pack of dessicated coconut too. Plus, I'm not a big pecan fan, so I got slivered almonds instead.
Then, I got home and discovered that all the oats in the house would only make 2 cups. oh well, I thought, just...multiply the recipe by......two-thirds? Right. I can do that.

Not so, really...I kept forgetting to, so the mixture ended up being a study in chuck-it-in-any-old-how. As a result, there was waaay too much sesame seeds, so muuch so that it almost overpowers everything. plus, you can hardly taste the coconut. and the dried fruits were maybe a little too dried, because by the time they came out of the oven and cooled, they were quiiite hard.

Oh and then there was the issue of my granola not sticking.
This was because I added the honey mixture in a few additions, and after about 3/4 of the mixture had gone in, I tasted it, and it was extreememly sweet. So I stopped adding, since the mixture was quite wet already. Alas, it just. refused. to. stick. I got maybe 5 (precarious) bars out of the mix and a good-sized Tupperware full of loose granola.

This was on Thursday. Over the past few days, I'd been scooping out the granola and eating it as cereal, but the mix was just not sweet enough. So today, I was finally fed up enough to try again. I mixed up some honey, butter, brown sugar and salt, and re-mixed the loose granola, then baked it again.
Success!
Or, almost.
This batch held much better than the previous (not saying much, really), although some pieces needed to be pressed into bars. All in all, this was a really good learning experience, since now I know how the different ingredients work in the bigger picture of the granola bar, so in future I'll be able to play around more with ingredients. I'll probably use two different kinds of nuts next time, more rice crispies, definitely less sesame, and I'll prolly skip the vanilla and replace it with some cinnamon powder. If I'm feeling particularly rich, I might use maple syrup too, instead of honey and cinnamon. Or mix in some jam with the honey to make it less sweet..
whee, I'm already excited.

I wonder if a dried-mango (or some other Chinese dried fruit) granola bar would be nice..?

Here's "my recipe", all figures adjusted as they should be.

Ingredients:
2 cups rolled oats (old-fashioned or instant)
1 cup slivered almonds
¼ cup desiccated coconut
1/3 cup sesame seeds

1 1/2 generous cups rice crispies
1 1/2 cups dried fruit, chopped (I used apricots, cranberries and cherries)

2/3 cup honey
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Toast the nuts, coconut, seeds and oats by spreading it out on two baking sheets at 180ºC, or by tossing in a dry frying pan on low heat.

Add the toasted mixture to the nuts and crispies in a large bowl.

Mix the honey, saly, butter and sugar together in a saucepan and heat, stirring til dissolved.

Take off the heat and add the vanilla.

Toss the dry ingredients with the honey mixture, then spread onto well-oiled baking sheets and bake, at 180ºC till toasty and golden.

Let cool for a few minutes, then cut the bars, but wait till fully cool before removing from pan.

Cake

Some days I just want to eat cake. Not necessarily good cake, you know the kind: fresh whipped cream, soft, cloud-y cake base, rich, decadent flavour combinations, layers of ganache, meringue et al, at $5 a slice—sinfully good cake that you feel guilty about forking out $5 over. Cakes like that I utterly love. I've been known to stand in front of cake cases drooling, with a maniacal glint in my eyes, as I plan how best to steal all the cakes out of their glass prison and liberate them—into my stomach.
But some days I jst want to eat the cheapo cake that those neighbourhood bakeries sell—plain vanilla sponge layered with plain butter cream that's just a little oily and plastic-y.
I can just hear you asking yourself, "oily and plasticy?? why would anyone want to eat that, and pay good money for it??"
Well, I don't know. It's just good. and cheap. $1.50 a slice.
hmm. ok, maybe not cheap per se, but 'cheap' enough for you to delude yourself into thinking that it's a steal.


See? Isn't it pretty? yumm. :) this is good, old-fashioned, heartlander-type food. So don't call me elitist! (haha)

B Bakery

Went to B Bakery with M this afternoon, after reading good things about its Sticky Buns in 8Days. Whilst I wouldn't say that we had trouble per se looking for the place, we did have quite a trek from the MRT station, and under the blistering sun no less. But I am happy to say that it was more than worth it. As there were only two of us, we only ordered 3 items, the Passion Fruit Cheesecake, Chestnut Opera, and, of course, the reason for our out-of-the-way travels, the Sticky Bun. All were fantastic. The photos in this post are all abyssmally terrible, thanks to a 1.3megapixel phone camera and insufficient lighting (sufficient for dining, but insufficient for photo-taking, that is), but I will definitely return, because it is of utmost importance that I take good photos of the food, of course. Definitely not because I'm a glutton and am already planning what to eat next time..
Well, on to the food, then.

M's cheesecake was rich and creamy in texture, but deliciously tangy and fruity, making it rich and light at the same time, paradoxical as that sounds. Another nice thing about it is that it looks just like a piece of normal cheesecake, so the first bite is startlingly delicious, the tangy passionfruitiness rather unexpected. I took of a corner of it before remembering to take a photo, and M had already begun eating from her side, so you'll just have to see it from this picture of the dessert case: it's the yellow rectangular slice, fourth from the left on the middle shelf. Yes, the picture is almost useless as an illustration of the cheesecake, but it shows many of the other lovely desserts that B Bakery sells: (from left) a meringue tart; perhaps lemon meringue, strawberry shortcake, tiramisu, passionfruit cheesecake, chocolate raspberry tart, apricot tart and pear tart. See why I already can't wait to go back? They also have a verrry delish-looking chocolate-lemon slice (i can't remember the name), bight yellow sandwiched between layers of seductively dark chocolate that is on my must-try list.
Also not in the picture is the Chestnut Opera, which I ordered, primarily because of its lovely, glossy, mirror-smooth top layer of chocolate.

Just look at it! All smooth and glossy and perfect, and all those brown, creamy-looking layers stacked on each other, looking oh so mmm-some.

The Opera was basically, from the bottom up, a base layer of nutty cake, followed by chestnut cream/mousse, chocolate mousse, then cake, chestnut, chocolate, and that gorgeous top layer. The top layer, I am glad to say, was pretty much as good as it looked, oozy sweet and chocolatey good, and the chocolate mousse layers were good too, light, yet rich, creamy and chocolatey. The chestnut layers were nice and nutty, although the overall chestnut flavour was a little too subtle. Overall, I wouldn't say I didn't like this; I did, but it could have been better.



Well, last, but definitely not last is the Sticky Bun:
It isn't very evident in the photo, but the bun is coated in a glossy, dark, layer of lovely, lovely glaze, not the typical white-sugar glaze that covers most cinnamon buns, but an absolutely fantastic brown sugar-esque glaze that is so good it pretty much defies description. The word that springs to mind is just, dark. And if I were to compare it to a familiar flavour, it would be gula melaka—it has that dark, almost bitter kind of flavour to it. The bun itself was a little dry, the best part was the very middle, where it was moist and springy. The texture of the bread was a little on the coarse side, not like the denser, yeastier chewy sort of texture most cinnamon buns are made of. I would have preferred a chewier sort of bread, but this was good, too.

The B Bakery also serves sandwiches, salads, and pizzas (on Fridays), so I really am looking forward to going back there with a biiiig appetite, so I can try more of their menu.

After M and I were done.

B Bakery
15 Bussorah Street
(Near Arab Street and Golden Landmark Hotel)
Nearest MRT: Bugis

Came across a few panna cotta recipes this weekend, and whilst my favourite kind of panna cotta is the plain vanilla with a thin layer of rich dark chocolate cream on the top, i was looking through the kitchen cupboards when i saw some Japanese tea cups that my mother never uses, and i suddenly thought that i matcha panna cotta would be lovely. kind of like matcha ice cream, creamy and rich, but not frozen.

maybe next weekend—it's a long one coming up. :)

Eggy in a Basket ROCKS!

Well, I said i'd go back and make myself an Eggy in a Basket breakfast, and so I did. and boy was it gooooood. buttery, crisp bread surrounding a delicious fried-in-butter egg: so simple, but so, so, so good. this is a fanstastic way to use up old, going-stale bread, even better than toasting, because the butter prevents it from becoming dry. This is so good, it might even over take pancakes as my breakfast-craving number 1.
but maybe not. but that's really not the point.

the point is, well, that this is such a decadently delicious, easy-peasy thing to throw together, that everyone should try it.
Ingredients:
Egg: 1
Slice of bread: 1
Butter
Serves one.
First, take out a slice of bread and place in on a flat, dry surface—i used the plate i was going to put my toast on, so i wouldn't have to wash another thing.
Then, take a drinking glass and cut a hole in the middle of the bread, making sure the glass is the right size to give you a border of bread around the hole.
Next, melt some butter in a small pan, spreading it out. when the butter starts to foam, place the bread into the pan, pressing down slightly with the spatula. Flip and repeat until the bread looks a little crisp/toasty.
Add a little butter into the hole, let it melt, then crack the egg into the hole. let the egg fry, making sure the fire is not so big that it burns the bread. if some egg white seeps out of the hole, cut it away with the spatula.
When the egg looks rather set flip the eggy over.

After the first flip: the bread isn't very toasty yet

Don't do this too early or the whole thing might wobble/slip all over the bread, and whilst it will still taste good, it won't look like an eggy in a basket.

If the pan looks too dry, add some butter and move the eggy around in the butter. when the egg is done to your preference—some like the yolk hard and cooked through, but i like it runny—and the bread is nice and brown and toasty, remove to a plate and eat. YUM. my favourite part.

Almost out of the pan: nice, brown toasty bread

Eggs in a basket

Watched V for Vendetta recently (again), and wound up seriously craving those Eggs in a basket or whatever they're called. I mean, fried bread, butter and egg with a gooey yolk. Is there anything more alluring? Can you hear the siren's call of the dark, dangerous, but infinitely seductive eggs in a basket? I can.

I am definitely going to make these this weekend.

To celebrate J's freedom from, and success over, the evil Special Term, the two of us The Simpsons Movie. Lunch was at the White Dog Cafe (02-131/132), and it was really really really good. We started with the Triple Mushroom Soup, which was excellent. Not the creamy, liquidated form that is found everywhere, not even the creamy, mushroom-flecked type that's really good, and slightly more rare, but a bowl of soup so chunky and mushroomy it was like minced mushroom stew. I loved the fact that you have to chew as you—literally—eat this soup, and as you chew, the juices from the mushroom pieces ooze out, amplifying the already-strong mushroom flavour of the soup. J and I both agreed that we'd go back just to drink the soup.

Then came our main courses: Creamy Salmon Linguine for her, and Chicken Leg for me. Her linguine was pretty good, the pasta perfectly cooked, not over-cooked and soggy, and the creamy sauce clinging lightly to the pasta. mm. My chicken leg, though, was much better, thanks to the delectable trumpette mushroom sauce—creamy, yet light, buttery, just slightly sweet, and sooo delish. It was the perfect foil to the chicken and mashed potatoes. mmmm, so, so, good.
As a result, J and I were both feeling absolutely stuffed when we finished, and just sat in our (quite comfy) seats for awhile watching the cable cars and sunlight. It might have been because it was almost 4 in the afternoon, and lunch hour was quite over, but the staff didn't make any of the usual signs that they were in a hurry for us to leave, which was nice.
Another plus was that both our mains came at the same time, and quite soon after our soup was cleared. I hate places where they serve you your main course five minutes after they serve you your soup, so that you either leave the soup to sit and get cold and congealed whilst you start on your food, or vice versa, neither of which is an attractive option, to me. All in all, this was really a rather good meal, a place i'll definitely visit again.

After lunch, before going in to the movie, J decided to go to Boost, that really very expensive smoothie bar on the same floor. At about $6.50 for a small cup, I've never actually been tempted to try on of their drinks, but J had told me about the craze it was in Aussie, so I decided to give it a go. Hers was some banana-honey mix, that was really lovely, very smooth, with a really nice honey flavour/scent, and mine was something called the Breakie to Gogo, which was banana and other fruits (I can't remember, exactly), and toasted muesli added into it before it went into the blender, which gave it a lovely wheat-y flavour, and a bit of texture. I wouldn't have believed it, but I'll prolly be going back there, too.
All in all, yesterday was a day for breaking out the bank, but I rather think it was worth it.

Raspberries

Went to the supermarket just now and saw these gorgeous ruby-red, perfectly formed raspberries, releasing their soft, sweet perfume-y scent to lure people like me into buying them.

Aren't they just beautiful?

I love the way they're basically many many little seeds/sacs joined together. they look so pretty. and they're delish too. yumyum.
I really do wish i lived in a place where fruits like these don't cost half an arm. For a punnet of i think 100g, these organic berries cost more than $10. goshhh!!! the only reason i actually got them was cos i was with my mum, who, whilst she doesn't like berries because she thinks they're sour, was also unable to resist the way they looked.

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I recently discovered this website, which features really cool cooking videos. Not that i think people really need guidance to this extent, but it's fun in the sense that you can watch a sort of food tv on your computer. So anyway, they had a really nice-sounding/looking recipe for chocolate chip cookies, the chewy kind, here, and the comments were all very positive. I also liked the fact that they explain why certain things are done, which satisfies my inner 'why why'.
So anyway, i decided to give this recipe a try, but to substitute chocolate chunks instead of chips because i wanted that decadent meltiness in my cookies.
Then, i got home, and realised that i didn't have any brown sugar, but i remembered reading somewhere that most brown sugars are just white sugars with molasses added. No, i didn't have molasses, and no, i don't know if that is actually true, because if it is, then all those people who avoid white, refined sugar and eat brown sugars instead are sure not getting the whole picture. but anyway. i found the remnants of a jar of black treacle that i used to make Gingerbread Men, so i figured, with a few changes, i'd be good to go.

The end product was, well, not as good as i'd expected it to be, but that's probably in part due to my changes, because the cookies are too sweeeet. probably should have put less sugar, and not used the chocolate i did—cadbury milk chocolate. as a chocolate it is rather sweet, so next time i'll definitely use a different one. the good thing about this cookie is that it is quite chewy in the middle, as advertised, so that makes me happy.

Well, for those interested, here's my recipe:

• 3/4 cup butter, (converts to about 168g)
  
• 1 cup white sugar (better to use 3/4 cup)
  
• 2 tbsp black treacle
  
• 3/4 tbsp. vanilla extract
• 1 whole egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 cups plain flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda (aka bicarbonate of soda)
  
• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chunks

Melt butter in microwave and let it cool til it solidifies. This part takes quite some time, so i let my melted butter sit in a big bowl of cold water with some ice.
[melting the butter and letting it cool is what gives the cookies their chewiness, according to the recipe. watch the video for more info.]
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 160ºC and sift the flour and baking soda together.
Scoop the butter into a big bowl and cream it with the sugar and the black treacle until fluffy.
Add the egg and egg yolk, and vanilla essence, and continue to beat until well incorporated.
Add the dry ingredients and mix til a soft dough forms, then fold in the chocolate chunks.
Use a tablespoon to scoop heaping spoonfuls of dough, roll into mounds and place on nonstick or oiled trays and bake til golden brown. Don't bake for too long or a crispy top will form and it gives the cookie a rather strange texture.

Just wondering, if the suffix -ies is generally to 'pluralise' words that end with -y, then why do we write many cookies and one cookie, not one cooky?

The purple container is a Tupperware container that is totally cool.
It expands and collapses accordion-style, so that storage is really easy.

Cravings

Am currently experiencing terrible food cravings. severe and terrible.

1) Japanese food!!!! this is all the fault of that Lonely Planet Japan book. all that talk about tofu, abura-age, miso paste, green tea and all that. oh god. i want to get my hands (and mouth) on some:
a) Sashimi from that Japanese restaurant at Chijmes—seriously the best sashimi I've ever eaten, ever. especially the swordfish. oh. my. god. firm, chewy/bouncy, juicy and creamy, and oh so fresh. mmm. the green tea here tastes excellent—the sort that has roasted rice mixed into it to give it an earthy, roasty fragrance. mmmm.
b) yakitori from Shin Kushiya at VivoCity. They serve a type of yakitori that is not dipped in the sauce when they grill it. Instead, it's seasoned with salt, so that the outsides are dry and crispy, and the insides are just bursting with juice. They also grill their skewers with real charcoal (and apparently a special sort of charcoal too, for prolonged high temp), so there is a very nice hot-coal sort of fragrance to the skewers.
c) the scallops with miso paste from Megumi at Siglap. the best baked scallops ever. really. it's lightyears better than the whole cheese sauce baked shellfish. the miso paste is salty, creamy, a litte sweet, and has this fantastic flavour that is totally out-of-this-world good. ohh boy.
d) reverse California Maki roll from that Japanese restaurant at Paragon—i just can't remember the name. this is a really really good maki roll, rolled with the rice outside instead of inside and then rolled in crushed salted seaweed and toasted white and black sesame seeds. then topped with those little orange egg roes. totally divine. the sushi chef here is very skilled, because the sushi is well rolled and doesn't fall apart, and the rice is deliciously flavoured with that vinegary taste: just right, not actually sour, but fragrant. the green tea here is also good.

2) Breakfast food!!!
a) the pancakes from New York New York: need i say more?
b) sticky cinnamon buns—chewy, sweetandsalty, cinnammony goodness. mmm.
c) scrambled eggs—the kind i make: creamy, cheesy, with lots of 'juice' because of extra milk and butter. also heart-attack inducing.
d) grilled tomatoes. the ones in my pesto pasta at the Wine Garage were fantastic. halved cherry tomatoes griled til soft inside so that they just burst into a flood of warm tomatoe-y goodness in your mouth. mmm-good.
e) chocolate chip cookies. this i am totally going to bake this weekend.

3) Cremé bruleé: for some reason i am totally craving this, completely out of the blue.

okay, i think i'd better stop here before i drive myself insane.

Earl Grey-Lemon Teacakes

I've been toying with the idea of earl grey-lemon as a cookie or cupcake flavour for some time now, and when I discovered this recipe, I figured with a small change, I'd have what I wanted. The basic cake recipe is a really really good one, in more ways than one. the flavour and texture are fantastic, and the cakes have a bouncy, springy texture that is really excellent. plus, it's a very forgiving recipe. i made two separate batches (because my mother, the earl grey fanatic, loved them), and the first time, i accidentally forgot to beat the eggs into the butter and sugar before adding the flour and milk. so, i actually added them after about a third of the flour and milk had gone in, but the results were still great.
i'd most definitely make these again, but the only thing i would do differently the next time is i'd probably not add the frosting. It's a little too creamy and thick for my taste, and i think the cakes on their own are nicer. If I had madeline moulds, I'd make them in those instead, too.

These'd be great as breakfast, or tea, with a steaming hot cup (or pot) of tea. something warm and vanilla-scented, i think, would be great. or a blisteringly hot cup of black coffee.

looking lovely and golden brown, sans frosting

Cupcakes Galore

Seeing as how I spend many moments during work clicking around looking at food-related things, it isn't really surprising that I plan my baking/cooking schedule during work-time. Sadly, it isn't often that I get to bake two days in a row, since it does take time for the stuff to get eaten. This week, however, has been different.

On Sunday I made the One-Bowl Buttermilk Chocolate Cupcakes that I've been eyeing for a few weeks—I finally got around to buying buttermilk. They tasted okaay, if a little on the slightly dry side. I left them alone, but I was not very happy with them, since they were not "light and moist" as described. When I woke up on Monday, however, I woke up thinking that something on the top would take care of the dry problem. So I found a vanilla buttercream recipe and added cocoa powder to it, ending up with a reallly good, yummy, chocolatey cream to top my cupcakes with. yum.

Then, yesterday were pretty, fun Confetti Cupcakes made for M and my cousins. rather funny that the same thing can make both an almost-20-year old and two preschoolers so happy. Yes, M is rather perplexingly enamoured with coloured sprinkles and 100s-and-1000s. go figure. but well, whatever makes a person happy, right?

The recipe calls for vanilla and almond essences, but I know M doesn't like almond essence, so I put lemon zest instead, and topped them with lemon buttercream. The two elements tasted pretty good on their own, but together, somehow, it didn't quite work. They were a little better the next day, but still, they didn't taste as good as they looked.

I don't have a picture of the inside, because I finished one before I realised why I even picked it up to eat in the first place. Not that they were that good, I was just preoccupied with other things. For both a picture of the inside, and the recipe, check here.

When I gave them to M today, we both agreed that the chocolate ones were better. She even asked me for more, making me a very happy girl. I came home, with only one cupcake left after giving them to the various people, and a very good excuse to bake more cupcakes.

So here are the yummy chocolate cupcakes, complete with that mmmm-mmmm chocolate frosting. It's a testament to how good it is that my mother, who usually hates frostings and such, was scraping the bowl with her finger and eating the last bits.

Another happy thing: I tried the 'cone' method of filling cupcakes today, and wow, it's really fun. and cool.
and a really nice plus point is that, for people like me, who sometimes only get to eat one out of 12 of the cupcakes i bake, there's lots of soft cake to eat. :)

rich, chocolatey frosting topped with 100s and 1000s

pretty swirl!

happy yy.