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Brandy Snaps with White Chocolate Mousse and Summer Berries

Tags

brandy snaps, christmas, dessert, dinner party, summer berries, white chocolate mousse

Oh dear, it’s been a crazy last few weeks with me travelling for work and trying to get all the Christmas stuff sorted for next week. Blogging has been on the back burner as I’ve hardly been home, unfortunately. And I miss sharing recipes.

When I started this blog, I never realised how much it would become a part of who I am. Last year, I posted a few recipes here and there, mostly for family and friends. Now, this humble blog has readers in over 100 countries.

Being a part of the food blogging community has given me a great sense of pride. If you’ve ever used a recipe from a blog, and it’s turned out perfectly – you’ll know what I mean. I am constantly in awe of the food bloggers around the world who research, test, photograph, painstakingly detail and then share their favourite recipes. There’s a generosity of spirit and a love of sharing good food.

So this Christmas, think of your favourite food bloggers. They’ll never ask for your gratitude, but I know my table has been enriched with their food and their stories. These days I cook from blogs more than I do from my cookbooks, and that’s saying something because I have a whole lot of cookbooks.

Anyway, here’s a recipe that’s great to share as a side to Christmas pudding, or any day of the week in summer – and don’t worry if you don’t have brandy, you don’t (really) need brandy to make brandy snaps.

Grandma’s Chicken Sambal

Tags

chicken, easy curry, lemongrass, malaysian, nasi lemak, sambal, weeknight

For someone who grew up in Malaysia, I’m actually pretty appalling at cooking Malaysian. There I said it. The truth is that I never had to cook while I was at home, and when I finally left home I always found Western techniques much more approachable. I don’t know why, but it just seems much easier to learn to make a beurre blanc than it is to make a curry paste.

So, I went back to my consult on all things comforting and homemade – my Grandma – and asked her for her easiest recipe. She came back to me with chicken sambal, and Mum very kindly wrote down my grandmother’s precise instructions and sent it through to me.

It’s a very easy recipe to start making your own curry pastes (a sambal is essentially an Asian condiment, but can also refer to a Malaysian style of dry curry). Whether it’s an introduction to making your own curry pastes or because you need a sambal for your nasi lemak, you’re sure to love this recipe. It doesn’t require any specialist ingredients like shrimp paste (which is in most traditional sambal); in fact you can buy everything you need at a supermarket.

I really hope you try it and that it becomes a staple on your family table. I love when recipes make it from one family to another, and to another – adapting and changing along the way. So here it is, from my family to yours.

Grandma’s Chicken Sambal

for the sambal paste
8 red finger length chillies, or more if you want it spicy
¼ tsp tumeric
1 cm ginger, approx 15g, skin removed
6 garlic cloves, approx 25g
3 onions, approx 250g, roughly sliced

3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 kg chicken, skin removed (you can use breast or whole chicken, whichever you prefer)
1 stalk lemongrass, bottom third only – smashed with the back of a knife
3 kaffir lime leaves
¼ tsp chicken stock powder
¼ tsp sugar
salt, to taste
freshly squeezed lime juice, to taste
coriander leaves and thinly sliced red chilli, to garnish

1. Make the sambal by blending all the listed ingredients together to a paste – either in a mortar and pestle, or in a blender.
2. In a saucepan over medium heat, heat the vegetable oil and saute the onions until they are lightly browned around the edges.
3. Add the blended sambal paste and cook until aromatic and the mixture has thickened slightly. Make sure to stir so that it doesn’t catch on the bottom of the pan.
4. Add the chicken and lemongrass to the pan, and stir through so that the curry paste covers all the meat. Cover and cook on medium heat for 10 minutes. If the mixture is catching on the bottom, add 2 tbsp water to thin it out.
5. Uncover the pan, then add kaffir lime leaves, chicken stock powder, sugar and salt to taste. Cook uncovered over medium heat for 5 minutes, or until the sambal has reduced to a thick curry paste.
6. Add lime juice, making sure to taste for balance and check for seasoning. Serve topped with some coriander leaves and thinly sliced red chilli.

Chocolate Overload: Giant Kit Kat and M&Ms cake

Tags

baking, birthday, cake, children, chocolate cake, kitkat, m&ms

What sort of cake do you make for someone who can’t leave chocolate alone? (Ok, so that’s most of us, but you get the idea.) Well, this one of course.

It’s a whopping 4 kilos at minimum and covered in chocolate – It took over 45 KitKat fingers to go around the cake. It’s chocolate inside too, of course, and ganached with chocolate for good measure. Best of all, it’s not difficult – think of it as a project where you can mess up the icing and no one will know because it’s completely covered in chocolate.

Whether you’re a kid or an adult (with a kid inside), this cake is sure to please. And it’s pretty impressive to look at too!

Chocolate Kit Kat and M&Ms Cake
serves a lot of chocolate crazed people
from Luscious Chocolate Desserts

for the cake
3⅓ cup + 2 tbsp plain flour
2¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
¾ cup cocoa powder
¾ cup boiling water
255g butter
2⅔ cups sugar
1½  tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
2 cups sour cream

for the frosting
180g dark chocolate
½ cup sugar
4 egg yolks
¾ tsp vanilla extract
225g butter, at room temperature (cut into 1″ pieces)

2 packets M&Ms
12 packets KitKat (about 50)
1.2m of coloured ribbon

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Spray two 9″ round cake tins with cooking spray and set aside.
2. To make the cake –
   1. Whisk together the cocoa powder and boiling water until smooth.
   2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt.
   3. In a stand mixer with a padde attachment, beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla extract.
   4. With the mixer on a low speed, add in a third of the flour mixture, then 1 cup of sour cream. Repeat with the remaining flour and sour cream. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed to ensure an even mixture.
   5. Add the cocoa mixture and mix until evenly combined.
   6. Divide the batter between the two prepared cake tins – it’s a good idea to weigh them to make sure there’s about the same in each.
   7. Bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Invert the cakes onto a cooling rack.
3. To make the frosting –
   1. Melt the chocolate over a double boiler.
   2. In a heatproof bowl, mix the egg yolks with the sugar whisking constantly until all the sugar is dissolved.
   3. Combine the egg mixture and melted chocolate into the bowl of a stand mixer and whisk on high speed for 4 minutes or until the bowl is cool to the touch. Make sure it’s actually cool or when you add the butter, you’ll end up with a sloppy mess.
   4. Beat in the butter, one piece at a time, beating until smooth after each addition.
4. To assemble –
   1. Flip the cakes over and trim the top of the cakes if needed.
   2. Place a 20c piece of frosting onto your cake tray to secure the cake and place one cake layer on top. Spread with a third of the ganache mixture, then top with the remaining cake layer and frost with the remaining frosting – it doesn’t have to be perfect, you’ll cover it up with chocolate anyway.
   3. Place KitKat around the circumference of the cake, then fill the top with M&Ms. Tie with a bow and there you go!

Jamie’s Italian, Civic

Tags

Canberra, jamie's italian

Jamie’s Italian is the biggest thing to come to Canberra since… well, I don’t know. And word on the street is that they are opening up their doors to the public tomorrow.

I should start with a big fat disclaimer – I work there. So I won’t talk about the food other than to say that a lot of thought has gone into sourcing great quality produce from ethical suppliers.

The fish is sustainably sourced, and the chicken and eggs are free range. Pasta is made in house every day. Nothing comes into the kitchens without its processes being documented and inspected. There is astounding attention to detail – the locally sourced salumi is made without sodium nitrates because research has shown that the combination of sodium nitrate, red meat and red wine can lead to bowel cancer. 

Here are some photos to help you decide whether you’d like to pop in – you know you want to.

Fried three cheese gnocchi – $9.50

Meat plank for three – $40.50

Fish plank for one – $12.50

Prawn linguini – $28.00

Tagliatelle bolognese – $19.50

Vongole Tagliolini – $25.00

Land and sea risotto – $29.00

Bone in prime strip loin with truffle butter – $36.50

Creamy panna cotta – $8.50

Epic brownie – $10.00

Jamie’s Italian
125 Bunda St
Canberra, ACT
http://www.jamieoliver.com/italian/australia/canberra

Open 7 days a week, from noon – except Christmas and New Years Day
Book via this link, a phone number will be available soon

King Fook, Florey

Tags

belconnen, Canberra, chinese restaurant, florey, peking duck

Every so often, you find a little happy place that you don’t really want to blog about. It’s small, nondescript and in an unknown suburb. No one else really needs to know about it, right? And when you wander in, it feels a bit like you’ve wandered into someone’s dining room – in a comforting sort of way. You worry that if you post about it, other people will flock to it and you’ll never be able to get a table there again. 

But, there’s a part of me that wants to reward great little neighbourhood places like this. It’s good food, reasonably priced. In fact, maybe you even feel like you haven’t given them enough money.

And even better, it’s not just good for Canberra – it’s just good. It’s the perfect local Chinese takeaway that’s there when you need it and good enough to go out to dinner when you want to hang out with friends. And best of all, it does a kickass Peking duck.

Ok, so you have to order the Peking duck 24 hours in advance, but that’s fair I think.

Two courses Peking duck; duck pancakes and san choi bao  – $43 per duck

At $43 for two courses, the duck is the cheapest I’ve had. It’s pretty close to the famous Simon’s Peking Duck in Box Hill. The duck is expertly carved into 16 pieces – with a good bit of crispy skin on each piece. The pancakes are a bit thicker than usual, but still very good. And when you’re done with duck pancakes (as if anyone can ever really be done with duck pancakes… there’s the san choi bao of duck – or duck noodles) which is also pretty darn good. There’s also the option of soup as a third course, for an extra $5.

Just to be sure, we had to try a couple of other things on the menu. Shanghai fried noodles (to compare to the infamous Camy’s Shanghai Noodle House) and something intriguingly titled Dry Chilli Beef in Shanghai style.

Shanghai Fried Noodles – $11.80
The noodles, I’m happy to report are better than Camy’s, though I should note that that’s not a particularly high bar to beat.

Dry Chilli Beef in Shanghai Style – $13.80
The beef is good too – crispy, slightly spicy, slightly sweet strips of beef and sweet potato. None of us have ever tried anything like it before.

So, despite my slight misgivings about sharing my new happy place, I can’t help but think that little neighbourhood restaurants such as this should prosper. And I suppose, after all, that’s the job of a good blogger right? To discover lesser known places and share them. And so I pass this on to you, the select/not-very-many readers of this blog.

The verdict
King Fook is one of Canberra’s hidden gems. It’s good food at not-Canberra prices. Go. Take a friend. Take many friends. And make sure you decide to go at least 24 hours in advance so you can order a duck (or several).

King Fook
43 Kesteven Street,
Florey, ACT.
02 6258 1877

Lunch: Mon-Sat 11.30am to 2.30pm
Dinner: Mon – Sun 5.00pm to 10.00pm
BYO $2 per bottle corkage, $1.50 per beer
$1.50 surcharge on public holidays

In defence of Asian desserts: Sago Gula Melaka

Tags

asian dessert, coconut milk, gula melaka, sago pearls, sago pudding, tapioca pearls, vegan

I keep hearing people say that there are no good Asian desserts. Let’s be honest, Asian desserts are essentially starchy or deep fried (nothing wrong with either of those things) – think red bean pudding, mochi or lotus pancake. Then there’s the pseudo-Asian desserts like fried ice cream and banana fritter with ice cream. 

I get it, they’re often not as good as their cousins, Westerm *ahem* French desserts but let’s not forget that Asia has limited access to dairy. And the weather means that stuff like chocolate is often mixed in with oily stabilisers to help it withstand the heat and humidity. Take out chocolate and cream, and there go a lot of dessert options.

But Asia does have coconut milk (yum!) and gula melaka which is possibly the best form of sugar ever known to humankind. Combine these two and I’m reasonably sure you can win over the biggest Asian dessert-unbeliever. 

There’s are a couple of things to watch out for – buy the right sago and the right palm sugar. It’s the small white sago pearls (about the size of mustard seeds) and are also called tapioca pearls. I’ve seen it sold in supermarkets called seed tapioca. Don’t buy the bigger ones, those are for bubble tea. Similarly, the brown sugar needs to be gula melaka which is dark brown palm sugar as opposed to the light brown palm sugar often used in Thai cooking. And don’t confuse it with coconut sugar either – that’s different. I’ve attached a photo for you cos it’s that important.

Moving on – the last thing you need to be careful of is not over or under-cooking the sago. Undercooked sago is hard in the middle and overcooked sago is just tapioca sludge. Here’s hoping I haven’t scared you off the process entirely. Really, really, hand on heart this is one of my favourite desserts. And for my vegan friends, this is a pretty good dessert option – just omit the egg white.

Sago Gula Melaka
serves 8-10 (about 900ml)

250g small sago pearls
1 egg white (just omit if you’re vegan)
200g dark palm sugar, also called gula melaka
125ml water
1 pandan leaf (optional)
400ml coconut milk

1. Bring a large pot of water to the boil, then add the sago. Stir as the water returns to the boil to stop the pearls sticking to each other. Cook for about 12-15 minutes. As it cooks, the outer part of the sago will turn transparent and you’ll see a white dot in the middle of each pearl – that’s the uncooked part. Cook until the pearls are totally transparent or some have only the tiniest white dot in the centre.
2. Drain the sago pearls and rinse in cold water to remove some of the starch. They’ll slip through the holes in a colander, so use a sieve of some sort.
3. Beat the egg white to soft peaks, then stir in the sago. Pour into one largo 900ml mold or ten small ones. Chill to set, remembering to clingwrap the mold if you aren’t using it within 24 hours – otherwise the top layer of sago will start to dry out.
4. Break up the palm sugar with a pestle. Heat the palm sugar, water and pandan leaf (if using) over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
5. To serve, flip the sago pudding onto plates then pour over the coconut milk and palm sugar.

Sticky Date Cupcakes

Tags

baking, caramel sauce, cupcakes, dates, sticky date pudding

A year and a half ago, when we moved to Canberra I made these as my first ever cupcakes and took them to a house party. Half of me did it to make friends, but the other semi-competitive part of me wanted to cement my reputation as the baker in the group. It wasn’t long before people started referring to me as Cupcake Girl – kind of like a food-possessed power ranger.

These have been the most popular use of my cupcake powers by a mile. Not even the peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes beat these ones. I think there’s a little kid inside all of us that these speak to when there’s caramel sauce dripping from your fingers. 

For those times when you need to impress, whether it’s high tea or an indulgent dessert – these are just the thing.

They’re very easy, and suit even novice bakers. Don’t be alarmed if your cupcakes look lighter than those in the picture – when you brush them with the caramel sauce, they turn that decadent dark brown colour.

Sticky Date Cupcakes
makes 12 cupcakes

for the cupcakes
200g dates, pitted
1 teaspoon baking soda
125ml boiling water
125g butter
125g brown sugar
2 eggs
125g self-raising flour

for the caramel sauce
100g dark brown sugar
125ml cream
25g butter
dash of vanilla essence

for the caramel icing
125g cream cheese, at room temperature
180ml cream
3 tbsp icing sugar
3 tbsp sauce (above)

1. Preheat oven to 190C.
2. Place the dates in a food processor, and pulse until finely chopped. You could cut them up by hand, but it might take a while (and is a pain because they’re so sticky).

3. Put the chopped dates in a bowl with the baking soda. Pour over the boiling water, stir and let stand for 5 minutes.

4. In a stand mixer, beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until light and fluffy. Stir in the flour, then the date mixture.
5. Line a cupcake pan with 12 cupcake liners, then fill to 2/3 full using an ice cream scoop – this helps ensure that there is an even amount in each liner. In my experience, this batter divides evenly between 12 liners. These rise a lot, so don’t overfill, or you’ll end up with a overflowing mess – I often bake a test cupcake on it’s own when I’m using a new recipe.
6. Bake for 15 minutes, or until cooked through – test with a skewer to check if cooked.
7. While the cupcakes are cooking, sauce by melting all ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat. 

8. When the cupcakes are done, remove from the oven and poke about seven holes in each using a chopstick. Pour a tablespoon of sauce over each cupcakes, making sure to use a brush to coat the top of the whole cupcake.

9. While the cupcakes are cooling, make the icing. In a stand mixer, using the paddle attachment beat the cream cheese until smooth and there are no visible lumps. Switch to the whisk attachment and add the cream, sugar and caramel sauce and whisk to stiff peaks. 
10. When cupcakes are cool, pipe the icing onto the cupcakes using a 1M icing tip, then drizzle with the leftover caramel sauce.

DIY It’s a Trap Cookie Plate

Tags

birthday, cookies, craft, it's a trap, star wars

What do you get for someone who owns a death star tea infuser? As it turns out, despite the first film being made in 1977, Star Wars is still a big deal around here. *ducks for cover*

Despite sitting through all six episodes (under sufferance, I might add), and for a total watch time of 13 hours and 17 minutes I failed to see the magic – though Hayden Christensen did provide some eye candy, though fairly sub-par, Neighbours style acting. But, let’s move on.

Inspired by Gretchen’s Dinosaur Serving Dish, I decided to make a Star Wars themed cookie plate.

It’s pretty simple – purchase one Star Wars themed toy and one $2 Kmart saucer. Glue together using hot glue gun. It’s probably wise to glue all the joints in place too. And it may be prudent to weigh Mr Clone Trooper down with some weights in his legs.

Unfortunately, I did not do either of those things, so he survived for only a minimal length of time standing up. The good news is that he’s just as fun a project sitting down – I should probably have just done that in the first place.

 

If you’re thinking of doing a similar project, I’d recommend looking for something that has better structure – it needs to be fairly stable, so less tall and more area in contact with the table it’s going to stand on. Heavier is also better, in this case, as it’ll be less likely to tip over.

 

Ombre Cake for Billy’s Have You Eaten baking club

Tags

baking, baking club, billy law, girly, gradient, have you eaten, ombre cake, pink

I’m sure you’ve all had times where you’ve been thinking of the perfect cake to make for a party, but have you ever made a gorgeous cake and then decided to throw a party for it? I have, and it’s a cake worth throwing a party for.

When fellow Malaysian Billy Law threw down the Ombre Cake as his first ever baking club challenge, I must admit I was a tad unenthusiastic. Not because it didn’t look awesome, but because I’m not really one to use that much colouring in my cooking. Even red velvet cake is a stretch for me. But the more I looked at the pretty pictures, the more I wanted to give it a go.

An ombre cake is one that uses gradient in the cake layers, and can also carry through to the icing on top. It’s normally a vanilla-flavoured butter cake, and the icing tends to be some sort of buttercream.

The hardest part, if I’m being completely honest was committing to a colour. Blue – there are no naturally occurring blue foods (technically the blueberry is purple) which is why restaurant kitchen band aids are blue – so you can see if you’ve accidentally put it in food. But I’m getting distracted from my point, I’m easily distracted aren’t it? Yellow just looked too much like sponge cake, and the colour I wanted to do, purple has a tendency to fade to greyish tones. I was worried green would look too healthy (kind of like alfalfa). I bet you’re starting to think I’m on the neurotic side, and you may even be right, but I like to consider all these things before committing to a colour. Pink would have to do then – it’s never been one of my favourite colours and was a bit girly, but hey – I’d invite some girlfriends over and make a night of it. Yes, I threw a party for my cake.

Now I hate to be a downer, but I know there is nothing worse than getting excited over a recipe and then have it not be great. So, I’ll just tell you the truth now – the cake didn’t taste particularly good. I was pretty disappointed. Here we were, a bunch of girls sitting around, ready to watch Magic Mike – and there was no good cake! It was on the dry side, a bit bland and really just tasted like butter, sugar and vanilla. I realise to many people this may not be a problem. I should probably state now my radical belief that I there is such a thing as too much icing. And this was it. If I made it again, I’d do it in chocolate layers, with chocolate or coffee meringue buttercream. See my tips (below) for other thoughts.

Here is Billy’s recipe – I wanted a more obvious gradient so I added an extra layer (making it 5 layers of cake) for effect so the quantities are scaled up a bit.

Ombre Cake
cake adapted from Billy Law’s Baking Club
makes 5 layers of a 20″ cake
icing from Cake Journal‘s excellent tutorial
makes just enough icing to cover this cake as per the photo (you might want to scale the recipe up a bit if you’re worried)

For the cake
240g self raising flour
180g all-purpose plain flour
a pinch of salt
360g caster sugar
240g unsalted butter, softened
5 medium eggs
2 tsp vanilla essence
240ml milk
food colouring (colour of your choice)

for the icing
320g white sugar
90ml water
220g egg whites
500g butter, cut into cubes and cool, but not cold
1 tbsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
food colouring (colour of your choice)

1. Best to bake the cake a day prior icing. Preheat oven at 180C (350F). Grease and line 4 x 20cm cake tins with baking paper. Don’t worry if you just have one cake tin, you just have to bake each layer separately. Sift both flour and salt into a mixing bowl.
2. Beat butter and sugar in a food mixer on high speed until pale and light. Turn the speed down to low and add eggs one at a time, beaten well after each addition. Add vanilla extract and mix well. Alternately add flour and milk into the mixture. Beat until smooth and lump free. 
3. Divide mixture into 5 equal portions – the best way is to use a digital weighing scale. Add a tiny small dab of food colouring to each bowl and fold it into the mixture. Then gradually add more colouring to each bowl until you get an even gradient of colour among the four mixtures.
4. Pour batter into cake tins, cover loosely with foil and bake each layer for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre and comes out clean. If you are baking two cakes at the same time, swap the baking trays half way through baking. Once done, let cakes cool in tins for 5 minutes, then tip out and onto wire racks to cool completely before icing.for the icing
5. To make the italian meringue buttercream icing, first set the timer on 7 mins and pour the egg whites into a stand mixer with whisk attachment.
6. Place sugar and water in a saucepan and bring it to the boil, and immediately start the timer. Boil it on medium/low temperature. If the syrup starts to darken quickly turn down the temperature a little.
7. When the sugar syrup has been boiling for 5 mins, start the mixer on full speed and whisk the egg whites for the last 2 mins or until the temp of the sugar reaches 242C (you want 245 but the syrup will continue to cook.) With the mixer still going on high speed slowly pour the hot syrup down the side of the mixing bowl. Discard any leftover syrup in the casserole. Be very careful not to get burned on the hot syrup.
8. When all sugar syrup has been added the meringue should look thick and fluffy. Stop the mixer and change to the paddle attachment. To avoid meringue splatter all over your kitchen place a clean kitchen towel over the mixer. Set the timer on 10 mins and beat on high speed or until the mixing bowl is cool to the touch. If the mixture is too warm, when you add the butter you’ll end up with a sloppy mess (if this happens just chill in the fridge and whip back to goodness).
9. Now its time to add the butter. Start the mixer on high speed and with a knife cut pieces of the butter and add it to the meringue. When all butter is added it will not take long for mixture to turn into nice thick smooth buttercream. When that happens slow down the mixer and add the vanilla extract. Stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl and start again. I do this two times. You should now have a bowl full of lovely Italian meringue buttercream.
10. To prepare cake for icing, trim the tops and sides to make sure all layers are same size, level and flat. Start from the cake layer with the darkest colour, put a big dollop of icing on top then spread it with a palette knife evenly to make sure the whole top is covered and level. Place the second darkest colour on top, and repeat with more icing, cake, icing and finally the lightest colour cake on top. Now ice the whole cake and make sure the sides and top are smooth with icing. 
11. Divide the remainder of the icing into 3 or 4 equal portions (totally up to you), add different amount of food colouring to each portion, to create an even gradient of colour among the four icings. Pipe onto your cake as desired – I used a Wilton 1M piping tip to create roses – just pipe in a circle from the inside out. Using a palette knife, use the remainder of the icing to create a flat gradient top.

Tips for making ombre cake:

• Bake the layers with a loose covering of foil as it stops the layers from colouring too much on the top.
• Brush each layer with an apricot glaze (100g of apricot jam heated with 100g of water) – because the layers are so thin, and the cake is usually assembled over two days it has a tendency to dry out.