Congratulations On Your Opening

To my dearest dearest friends, KSL and Mr K, may I offer my heartiest congratulations on the opening of your new restaurant Isthmus, which I am sure will offer a host of dining pleasures, to the socialites and non socialites, gourmets, gourmands, gluttons, plebians of KL.


We await with great anticipation for the grand opening.

Anyway, guys and girls, it's a lovely set up, in the new Northpoint buildings, next to midvalley megamall. Basically it's on the route to Seputeh, if you're going around the megamall loop, and is on the ground floor, where the large open courtyard is, and as you enter, its in the building on the left, ie, block B I think. The restaurant is called ISTHMUS, and is affiliated to that chain of restaurants in Melbourne, Isthmus of Kra, Monsoon and Madam Fang. (ie, one of the owners owns or used to own those restaurants). I hear their trademark baked oysters in terra cotta plates will be featured here as well.

The last few days have been brisk baking business. People, ALL my free time, time that used to wallow around watching sitcoms, dvds, ALL OF IT, has disappeared, this week. I mean the usual routines of bringing the kids to the mall on Mondays, and inlaws dinner, and movie premieres (Casino Royale last night) can't be compromised, of course, but spare time, ZILCH.

In the last 48 hours, I've had to bake the following: 2 brownies, 3 chocolate oreo, 1 lemon tart, 1 walnut coffee sourcream, 1 chilled lemon cheesecake, 1 savoury chicken ham and mushroom quiche, and in the next 24 hours, 40 cupcakes, 1 walnut coffee, 1 lemon/lime tart, 1 more oreo, 1 arghhh, what was it, I can't even remember now....oh, orange cheesecake, AND I have to experiment on a baked orange cheesecake for my mother, AND I have my icing homework to do by tonight for the ICCA course tomorrow. Argh, my recorded Seinfeld backlog is increasing, and so are the 30 unwatched DVDs. Nothing new displayed down here, that hasn't been displayed before. Clockwise from left top, walnut coffee sourcream, choc orea, lemon cheesecake, lemon tart, and centre is the chicken quiche. Still got time to blog, should be thankful la.

Chocolate Oreo Cake, Best Seller for the Week

Considering I make this quite often, I never actually get to try it, coz it's hard to do test cakes for these layered cakes. However, yesterday, I had an order, as well as a freebie, for my bro in law's birthday, so I actually got to eat the cake. I was surprised actually, at how it tastes rather good, if I may masuk bakul angkat sendiri. It was moist...I'm not sure where the moistness comes from, as the sponge looks rather dry to me, and not too sweet.


One of the areas that I reckon vastly needs improvement is the icing on the cake, ie, the chocolate ganache. I dunno how the commercial ones get such a perfect surface. Does anyone or can anyone enlighten me on the process? I want a finish like secret recipes chocolate banana cake. Smooth chocolate. Mine looks like a teenager with bad skin, all pock marked. I tried using the spatula dipped in boiling water, which I learnt from my Wilton ICCA course, but that applies for buttercream icing.

Ah, more about the Wilton ICCA Level 1 cake decorating course. I've attended one class so far; it's very interesting, but I have to say, Wilton is to cake baking what Roman Catholicism is to Christianity. Very concerned about externalities, and very by the book kinda thing. Oh, and the ingredients prescribed, are of course, from Wilton. Our "homework" for the next class is to bring an iced cake, using the method and icing we learnt in Lesson 1. Frankly, I think between us floggers, people like Boolicious, snowdrop and spot, we could probably start our own denomination in the baking/decoration world.

Last Sunday, for my wife's niece's birthday, we revisited an old haunt I haven't been to since our courting days. ie, circa 10 years ago. Hard Rock Cafe. Being lunch time, I couldn't eat anything heavy, so I had the spaghetti marinara, which I found a tad sour/salty. For RM30, they could have been a bit more generous with the seafood, and not bombard the plate with squid. Unless marinara is italian for calamari. Oh, hangon, marinara probably IS italian, what am I talking about.

I managed to catch a shot of the fajitas that the group of lady guests ordered to share. Reason I wanted a record of this is so I know what I missed out when I serve mine. Well, I think I forgot the shredded cheddar, and shredded lettuce. But mine usually has sauteed onions. Ah well, now I know.





Imagine, those days, when we "frequented" Hard Rock, I barely stepped into the kitchen. Now, I am virtually a slave. Heck, the maid quickly retreated to bed and turned off all the lights before I could ask them to do any further washing up, on Monday night, as I was slaving away at 10.30pm. Let's see, I had to make a Lemon Meringue Pie, A Sticky toffee date pudding, 12 cups of tiramisu, 2 sponge cakes, and 15 scones. Was slaving from 6.15 to 7.30pm, and again from 10-11pm. Actually, quite efficient la hor. Oh, did a stupid thing. Was lazy to chop the chocolate, so tried using the food processor....which little did I know, is fragile as ....
I heard something go PIAK, and that was the end of the food processor. When I opened it the next day, I saw that the "fan belt" had snapped. So, children, do not put hard chocolate in your food processor, unless it's industrial strength.

I have to make 40 cupcakes this weekend for a birthday. Help, any icing recipes that can keep overnight without refrigeration? (Dont want refrigeration coz the cupcakes will be hard, and pickup time is 10am on saturday morning, so I can't do it on Sat morning itself)

It's Not That I Haven't Been Baking

Sorry for the long silence, any of you regular readers, real or imaginary, out there. It's not that I haven't been baking, it's just that I keep forgetting to take photographs. Anyway, what I've been doing recently, is making extra mini loaves, from the main batch of orders, firstly as a "quality control" thing, so I get to taste, and secondly, to feed the family, AND bible study group.

Sad to say, there has been nothing new in my repertoire lately. Have been catering to the same old same old. Last weekend, I had to prepare the Roast Duck Pasta for a friend's housewarming, together with a salad, mee siam (which the maid made), lemon meringue pie, AND, I experimented with a moist yoghurt chocolate cake, (as in there's yoghurt in the cake), and inspired by masak masak's review of the zangtoi choc banana cake, attempted to intersperse the chocolate cake with layers of banana and chocolate cream, and topped with a chocolate sauce. Again, I forgot to take pictures. But I did get a shot of the host and the birthday girl, with the cake. It doesn't say very much though.


Now, I found the the chocolate cake a tad dry, but that might be because I got the corners. The inside parts were better. I don't know if people were being polite or what, but generally the reviews were good. And it was finished. Then again, there were 30 people.



Samples of Carrot Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting, (from top, clockwise), sticky toffee date pudding, and banana walnut loaf. Might not be able to get a sense of scale here, but the loaves are quite small. Maybe 6" x 2 1/2 ".


I have to say that the sticky date pudding is rather good. It would be better served warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I recently bought a large bag of walnuts from Chang Tung. During the Raya period, there seemed to be a nationwide shortage of walnuts, which I needed for the carrot cakes, so I ended up buying them at Carrefour, at RM48 per kg. It's a lot a cheaper at the bake shops, I think it's like RM39 per kg at Chang Tung. It was still out of stock in Bake With Yen last week. Anyway, I then researched the internet, as I was snacking on them, (the walnuts) to see if they are good or bad. Turns out, it seems to be a miracle nut. Omega fatty acids, good for heart, bla bla bla....So, I've been embellishing my lunchtime salads with them, liberally.

Yesterday, I was at a friend's raya open house. Now, when I first laid eyes on these technicolor kaleidescopey layered cake, I was thinking, aiyo, looks terrible. But I have to say, one bite dispelled all doubt. They were rather delectable, with various flavours assaulting the palate. Since there were lots of other guests, I didn't bother putting them on a plate and photographing them.

New Experiments

What do you do when you find you have like lots of and lots of spare egg white??? It's quite exasperating actually. You can either 1. make a large omelette, 2. make a pavlova.

Most times, egg whites will be used up, when recipes call for separation of egg and state. ie, for chiffon cakes, lemon meringue pies...but not for tiramisus, though while some recipes incorporate the egg white into the filling, mine doesn't, so for every yolk I have, there's be the balance egg white.

So anyway, on Saturday, I had told my raya open house host that I'll bring a sticky date pudding, but after baking it, it seemed a tad tiny. Although I used a 8" round tin instead of square tin, it still seemed very shallow. KSL pointed out maybe it was meant to be shallow, like a brownie. But the taste seemed to go down quite well with everyone. It's a different texture to the one sold my my friend, Mrs McGregor. Her's seems to be more springy and spongy, whereas mine is more like a dense cake. But as I said, the taste was fine, rather delicious if I may say so myself.


So, to rectify the small looking cake, I thought I'd attempt a pavolva of sorts, but stupidly, didn't bother referring to the books, so just whipped up the meringue (yes, the kenwood whips egg whites stupendously well), plonked them onto baking tray and baked on low heat. Wasn't till after that I read that you need to add cornflour la, vinegar la, this la that la. So, my meringue never hardened. Nevertheless it still did not deter me from turning it into a strawberry meringue. Which to me tasted okay, if you like meringue.



While we're on the topic of meringues, indeed, the kenwood does whip egg white really well, and for 5 my egg whites, I've never managed to get such a tall meringue before. I'm not sure how the cooked texture tasted like, but I reckon it looks good. The lemon meringue pie below was an order for Sunday.

My New Baby's Tricks

Well, so far I have to say, the new baby hasn't been as exciting as I thought it would be. Firstly, I am not used to to the settings, ie, control not every good yet. Secondly, it is a royal pain to screw, unscrew, lodge, dislodge, the bowl. Thirdly, it's mainly good for one bowl mixes, ie, you don't require something ELSE that mixed from another bowl, eg, say if you needed to beat some egg white, and incorporate it into your cake batter......how??? You still have to fall back onto your trusty hand held mixer, because, you'd need to scrape the bowl clean, wash it, wash the beaters, and start all over again. Whereas with the handheld beaters, all you need is different mixing bowls, and move the beater from bowl to bowl. (and just wash the beaters).

On Sunday, the day after Deepavali, I had to make 3 carrot cakes, 2 brownies, and 2 tiramisus. So, I had to do it in the following sequence. The brownies first, coz they're basically one bowl mix. It was my first time making brownies with the baby, and the texture looked fine, initially. It wasn't until I was pouring the batter into the pans that I realised a lot of gunk at the bottom wasn't mixed properly. I made a feeble attempt to restir the gunk back into the remaining batter, but that might not have worked, because, the most awful thing happened while the brownies were baking. There appeared on the surface of the brownie a gurgling, boiling oil kinda texture. Which really alarmed me. Miraculously, it disappeared the minute I took it out of the oven. However, the brownie looked darker and harder than I was used to, so I honestly don't know if they were dry and hard as rock. For the next brownie order on Tuesday, I stuck with the old handbeater, and it was perfect.

For the 3 carrot cakes, I used the Kenwood to mix the cake batter, but had to mix the carrots, walnuts and raisins in another bowl. I guess that was coz of the sheer volume of it. Whipping of cream was easy enough, but I reckon it would be QUITE easy to overbeat cream in this baby. But again, I had to mix the mascarporne in another bowl, WITH another mixer. The cream cheese frosting for the carrot cakes, and buttercream for daughter's birthday cake, were done in the kenwood, and yes, it is great for that.

I am sooo exhausted, in addition to having been sick since Sunday. I want a refund on my public holiday.

One of the many Raya carrot cakes. Okay, granted, the Deepavali colors may have rendered it a bit gaudy, but hey, I was in a chirpy mood.

I ran out of steam halfway, for these freebies, and only managed to slap on some cream cheese frosting onto the cupcakes as a background for the lettering. As you can see, the yellow letters can't be seen clearly coz of the frosting. Next time I might just try an icing sugar glaze.

More sugarpaste letters....No prizes for guessing what they spell.

Tiramisu torte, with almonds and cocoa as opposed to caramelised nuts.

Another new item I tried was a Walnut Coffee Sour Cream Cake, fulfilling a last minute order by Mr Cambridge, who told me to "surprise" him.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this sms I received from No1 in Tianjin yesterday.

My Baby Has Arrived

After much scouting around, I decided that the "SPECIAL BUY" from Southern Bank's Direct Access was the best deal. RM1599 for this baby, at interest free instalments of RM133 per month. Now the problem is looking for a place to house this baby, considering the kitchen is more congested than a Singaporean HDB.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that you can fit all kinds of trendy attachments, from sausage maker to blender to processor. Of course, the attachments probably cost an arm and a leg. Now, if anyone can enlighten me, when we beat normal cake batter, which do we use? The K beater, the balloon whisk, or the dough hook? (obviously not the latter la). In Alex Goh's creative cake mixing, he uses the balloon whisk to mix the sponge mix. How? This is more exciting than getting a new car, and is singularly one of the most expensive appliances I've ever purchased. Heck, my TV is 11 years old, my dvd is the chiplak RM119 one. My stereo (or amp), is also 10 years old, and is falling apart. I use the chiplak dvd player as a cd player....


Godma unloaded a tonne of very ripe bananas on me yesterday, so I decided to try out a new banana cake recipe, ie, the Chocolate Banana Cake from AWW. However, after mixing the milk & lemon juice mixture, (I guess this is a form of buttermilk), I FORGOT to add it into the final batter. Anyway, it turned out okay, sans chocolate icing, coz brought it to in-laws place and no time to cool the cake.


These mini loaf pans I bought from Carrefour are a real boon. Now I can have a few experimental loafs on the side, by making extra batter. And they're non stick, so only need to grease a little bit, and they plop out easier than a baby from a woman who's had 6 kids.



The other experimentation was using fondant/sugarpaste icing to make lettering. I bought the lettering set from Pasaraya Bagus, in Shah Alam. I haven't touched fondant since the wedding cake episode, and it was with trepidation that I tried. Anyway, I intend to do what everyone's doing with cupcakes, and using these banana cupcakes below, putting a letter of the alphabet on each, to form the words HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILIE.



These are the colors of the fondant that I made. I discovered that one batch of 500gm can probably go a LONG LONG way as far as lettering goes. Can probably write a short essay with it.

Further to the comment by Snowdrop in the previous post, regarding auctioning cookie cutters, well, keep your eyes peeled, I have been known to lose interest in certain hobbies, ...... like guitar lessons, so if that day comes, EVERYTHING, from cookbooks, to baking pans, will be on sale.

Enough Cookie Cutters For Now

Thanks to Spot, or was it Snowie, who directed me to that marvellous baking decoration heaven, called Wilton, in Section 14. Of course, don't expect to pay your average Bake With Yen prices for any of the merchandise. But hey, yutt fun cheen yutt fun for. I think Venetia had earlier on directed me to that site as well, but I had deleted her comment in haste cos it revealed my name, and it aint Rumpelstiltskin.

Check out my latest purchase....what got me was the T-Rex cutter. But after buying it, I remembered that 3rd kid, ie, boy no 2, is no longer into dinosaurs, but more into Ultraman and Power Rangers..... oh well, Christmas is around the corner, so I guess they (the cutters) can be used for a whole gingerbread zoo, though I have no idea how gingerbread is related to the birth of Jesus Christ in any way.





Anyway, I also enrolled for the Level 1 Cake Decorating course. The lady there asked me at least twice if I was registering for myself. It wasn't until I announced that I was bored with my day job, did they believe me. I very foolishly showed one of them my attempt at my first wedding cake, and she almost condescendingly said, "hmm, not a bad effort for first time"... and proceeded to show me a styrofoam coated with fondant cake by one of the students, proudly telling me, oh, this was done by a guy, first timer with no experience. I have to say the fondant was exceedingly smooth.

Meanwhile, this morning, to my horror, I discovered that two lemon meringue pies I had made for a delivery today had gone partially soggy in one section. (ie, the crust). I'm not sure why this is so, probably the meringue leaked or something. And what is with the bleeding of the meringue? Can anyone enlighten me? (usually when I ask these kind of culinary question, it's directed at Boo_licious)

Caramel Banana Pie

Got my last of the 4 books that I ordered from Amazon. I don't understand how the postal service here works. The first parcel had to be picked up from Chan Sow Lin area, and the 2nd parcel, in the Pantai Dalam area. Important thing is, they all arrived safely.

It's been a phenomenal week last week, with 15 orders. Well, 4 were complimentary, 11 were commercial. An old recipe I dug up, that haven't used in awhile, was the Caramel Banana Tart, which is something like a Banoffee Pie, except the latter usually required boiling condensed milk for 2 hours, and I can't get myself to waste that kind of electricity, unless I have 10 orders of banoffee. My alternative recipe has all the goodness of milk and sugar, without having to make TNB happy. Alas, I didn't take any decent pictures of the pie, so I only have this to show:


If you're interested in trying it out, the recipe is as follows:

Filling:

1 cup milk with 1/2 cup corn flour, mixed
100 gm butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1½ cups whipping cream
3 bananas
chocolate sauce

Pie case : Well, you should know how to make it by now, so no need to explain here

1. Melt the butter and sugar in a saucepan until all melted. It should form a lovely brown-ish golden caramel.

2. Add the milk and cornflour mixture until the whole thing thickens. My boy calls it Taffy. Donno WHEERE he learnt that from.

3. Remove from heat, and stir in the egg y0lks and vanilla essence. When it is cooled, spoon into the tart shell, top with bananas, and a layer of whipped cream, and just before serving, place some banana slices on the top, and drizzle with chocolate sauce. Refrigeration is of UTMOST importance. The colder the pie the better.

In fact, it tastes better after overnight in the fridge.

Is Semolina/Sugee Considered Flour?

I just had lunch with "Tan Sri", at Delicious, upon my suggestion, as we were trying to decide where to eat at Bangsar Village.

The place is a success story, and sticks to the simple formula of fairly good food at fairly affordable prices in fairly nice surroundings, with fairly easy parking. My nasi kerabu was fairly good, not the best, but certainly not the worst. "Tan Sri"'s mushroom soup looked thick and mushroomy, with evidence of shitake mushrooms swimming about.

Now, many many years ago, King of the Chinese used to lug back a Flourless Lemon Cake from Daimaru, Melbourne, for us everytime he came back. Not into baking yet at the time, I was intrigued by the term flourless, just like most of the non cake laity out there, (FLOURLESS? REALLY AH? HOW LIKE THAT? WHAT DO YOU USE?) but never really pursued the matter beyond going ooh and aah. Fast forward, many many years down the line, I wish I had done SOMETHING about obtaining the recipe back then.

So, I've been meaning to try the flourless orange cake in Delicious. Tan Sri and I dissected the cake, and tried using our tongues and imagination to decipher the composition. I told him that most flourless cakes have almond and egg, which was when he commented, it tastes like sugee. Now, sugee seems to be known as sugee only in this country, otherwise it is known as semolina. (Not salmonella, which is the poisoning from raw egg). From an internet search, I found that

Semolina flour;

Typically hard durum wheat which has been ground into flour. The resulting product is high in gluten and is used for making pasta and breads. Semolina is available in coarse or fine texture flour.
(courtesy of http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/)

Which begs the question. Is it a flour? If not, then an orange sugee cake can be classified as a flourless cake.

But back to the more important point, anyone out there has a recipe for flourless orange/lemon cake? (not from the internet la, must be tried and tested)

Carrot Cake With Frosting

Another cake on the "for sale" list recently has been the carrot cake. Aitelyu in this life, you REALLY cannot please everyone. Some say its too dense, they prefer it more cakey, fluffy, ....but when you make it lighter, some say they prefer it dense.

So, for the ease of future ordering, you may follow this guide for lemon and carrot cakes. No point doing one for durians, because, 1. the cliparts of durians aren't available on Microsoft, 2. if you are ordering durian cake, in all likelihood, you'd want DURIAN. Very little room for grey area with durian. You either like it, or you don't. So even a hint of it can make a person sick, if inclination is of the latter.


During a recent dinner, a friend's friend from Ipoh suggested I try making a cempedak cake. She has childhood memories of eating it, and remembers it being divine. Anyone got a recipe to share?

Off the top of my head, this is how I would make it, if I were try.

400gms of cempedak flesh, pureed, with some milk.

250gms butter
3/4 cup sugar

5 eggs

2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup custard powder

1. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. I wonder why this isnt a more popular snack. Butter and sugar on its own, is divine. Recently, I found out that some friends think BUTTERCUP is butter. Hallo, please read your contents list. If its too cheap to be butter, it ain't!!!

2. Add in the eggs one by one. My favourite cooking eggs are Seri Murni, large. They separate easily too, and are reasonably priced. Who cares about low cholestrol eggs if you are whacking 250gm of butter.

3. Stir in sifted flours in two batches. Add the cempedak puree. Bake in preheated 180C oven for an hour.

Anyone game to try? I am dying to try, but haven't seen any cempedaks on the road yet. Oh, cannot replace with jackfruit, I'm pretty sure. The cempedak needs to be ripe too.

I've got a friend, Woman I am Scared Of, who recoils in horror at the sight of jackfruit and cempedak. Some childhood related trauma. Dunno if it fell on her head or something.

Martha Has Arrived

Sorry for the long hiatus. I haven't been experimenting on anything new in the last few weeks, and all the dessert orders have been stuff that has already been featured, so nothing to blog about. Lately the lemon meringue pie has been getting a lot of exposure, and is becoming increasingly popular. As I predicted, people's SOURNESS TOLERANCE LEVEL varies, so I get comments like, Ah, just right, not sour enough, or EEUGHHHH, tooo sour. I shall incorporate a lemon scale for future orders.

Last birthday, late 2005, dear friend Jays from NY gave me a USD50 Amazon gift voucher. Recently I realised I should use it before it expires. After numerous attempts, at ordering 2nd hand books, baking utensils, all which can't be delivered to out of America, I finally settled for new books, and of course, what kinda books, but cookbooks. For all the variety you can get here, there are surprisingly few Martha Stewart books available locally. Maybe she's a convicted felon, and our censorship board does not allow works by authors like that. Then again, you can buy Jeffrey Archer's stuff quite readily.

Anyway, the problem with ordering from Amazon is the exorbitant postage cost, and basically, you need to buy more than one book to get some sort of economy of scale for postage. So, I ended up buying 4 books, way exceeding the USD50 gift voucher. Today, 3 out of the 4 books arrived!!!!

To my delight, one of the recipes had what looks like something VERY close to Alexis' Pear and Ginger Upside Down Pudding.



My quest for that recipe (apart from the one Boolicious of Masak Masak gave me a few months back) has been like the quest for the holy grail. The other thing that is almost impossible to find is a SQUARE pie tin with a removable base and corrugated pie sides. Unfortunately, the pear ginger cake calls for golden molasses, which I think is quite expensive. I just gonna hantam golden syrup.

The Sachertorte recipe in the Green & Blacks Chocolate Recipes looks to die for. Oh well, lots of new things to try, so keep your eyes peeled in the future.

For a semi food related tale and friend's 40th, do check out the story at limiteditions.

Lemon Cheese Cake Virgin No More, and Duck Pasta

When I got a request from now 8 year old friend, and recent baker, to make a lemon cheese cake for her birthday I was hesitant because, 1. lemon is not a universally adored fruit, unlike its rounder sibling, the orange, 2. I have never attempted a lemon cheese cake, 3. now that I am getting paid for these things, there's a whole lot more stressed involved.

Fortunately, I have like 200 cookbooks at my disposal, so finding a recipe for lemon cheesecake was as easy as looking for news on snatch thieves in the local papers. But I think we all gravitate to our roots eventually, and I found myself using Catherine Lau's recipe from Cheese cake seduction. What I like about her recipes is that they are quite easy to follow.


Fortunately, it turned out quite well. It was fairly light, not too sour, just the right amount of zest, and well, a few of my friends had seconds, and since they were paying for it, I guess I could have relied on them for brutal honesty if the cake stank.

I originally wanted to add a layer of chocolate in between the biscuit base and the cheese filling, but completely forgot. Last Friday, I was doing some "market research" and had a slice of lemon cheesecake in Chinoz on the Park, which had chocolate glaze. But that was a baked cheese cake. This particular one, as you can see, is the chilled variety.


The other thing I tried over the weekend, which was inspired by the Duck Pasta in Delicious, was Roast Duck Pasta. Too lazy to cook the duck myself, I bought some roast duck.

Although none of my guest raved about this, I personally liked it very much, and even had the leftovers for lunch the next day. This is how I went about it.

Some diced raw garlic (about 1 bulb, I guess)
Oyster Mushrooms, sliced finely (about 300gms)
Half a Roast Duck, deboned, and sliced finely
Generous amount of coriander, finely chopped
10 basil leaves, finely chopped
250ml olive oil
4 red chillies, diced

500gms vermicelli pasta

1. Heat a little bit of the olive oil, or grapeseed oil, fry a small portion of the garlic until fragrant, and fry the roast duck together with the oyster mushrooms, to impart a lovely garlicky ducky flavour to the mushrooms. Set aside

2. Using rest of olive oil, slowly fry the garlic, and diced chilli. It should give a lovely aroma.

3. Boil the pasta to al dente.

4. Toss all the ingredients together, and sprinkle chopped herbs to incorporate.

5. Serve with parmesan if desired.

SERVES 14.

Culinary CPR

I have to say that the response to my semi commercial venture has been very encouraging. Now, the proof of the pudding is in the eating as the old adage goes, so, it remains to be seen how many repeat orders I have. Last week I've had to cater the following: Apple Pie, Tiramisu Cake, Tiramisu in A Tray, Peach and Banana Crumble, Scones, Chocolate Tart, Lemon Pistachio Sour Cream Cake, Banana Walnut Loaf, plus a side "encore" of a butter cake for Evil Twin's wife's birthday during bible study, but she no show, so the cake went to my mother's cell group.

A Chocolate Brownie That Doubled Up as a Birthday cake on Thursday night, for Toekneetoe

The major bulk of orders were for pickup on Saturday afternoon. I had premade the chocolate tart the night before, and plonked it in the fridge. Honestly, I don't know if it was the domestic help's fault, or my own, but to my abject horror, the next day, when we took it out, the whole tart pastry had turned soggy from water accumulated in condensation of sorts. Now, if I had been serving friends, it wouldn't have bothered me too much, but as this was a first time sale, I had to make a proper first impression, so desperately tried to dehydrate the tart, by placing it on a perforated pizza pan, and warming in on a low heat.

Can you see the soggy pastry?

But after half an hour, I gave up the CPR, and thankfully, had a spare pie tart casing, so after informing the buyer that I need some extra time, managed to whip up a new chocolate tart.

I subsequently froze the old tart, (no, I am not referring to cryogenically freezing some woman), which was subsequently served to the other cell group as well. I had a taste of it, and actually, it wasn't bad. However, if you are a not a chocaholic, I think this is way too rich for the average person, and can only be taken in small doses. Slithers of it. And even then, this recipe is not 100% solid chocolate, unlike some other recipes. Half of it is actually baked, with eggs, cream, cocoa, etc....

My latest treat to myself, Jamie Oliver's new book. I am not really a JO fan, but I got a 20% discount plus free brolly, so I am a reallll sucker for these things.


Had a glance through, it's typical Jamie Oliver, simplicity is its trademark. However the dessert section is disappointingly short. I think there are only about 20 types of desserts featured. One or two do look rather delectable, but the rest...hmmmmm......

Anyone want to buy it off me???

Weekend Travails

Yikes!!! I've been baking everyday since Friday. On Friday, it was the birthday cake for friend's birthday party, (no cell group), who requested the flourless chocolate cakes. Again, let me reiterate that decoration is not my forte. I really need to attend some cake decoration class, so if any of you have any pointers as to who conducts these classes, without making it like a diploma course with commensurate pricing, do let me know.



Starting with Friday night, this was the outcome of 34 pieces of flourless chocolate cakes piled together. The problem with this cake was the stress involved in getting it to the destination without it toppling. Of course, I had structurally enforced with with skewers, but you never know, it's like the equivalent of 10 on a Richter Scale when the car goes over some potholes in KL!!

On Friday night itself, I get an order from Datin, asking for passion fruit cheesecake, lemon meringue pie and scones. Aiyo, wheeeeeere to find passion fruit at such last minute. Hardly something I can buy in the wet market, or even cold storage. After much objection, she resigned herself to any cheesecake. I asked if she wanted the chilled variety or baked. Fortunately, it was the former, so she got an orange cheesecake. I have NOOO idea how this one tasted. Lemon Meringue Pie, now becoming a standard order, wasn't much of a problem.

Fellow gym member had ordered a Durian Poppy Seed Cake as well. (all this was for Sunday morning pick up). So on Saturday night, before going off to join my pals for a spot of Pok Kuat (Dead Gin), I had to basically make, the cheesecake, the lemon meringue pie, the durian poppy seed cake, and the sponge base for Baby Boy's 4th birthday on Sunday.

On Sunday, after church, and after a nap, had to prepare Scones, Chicken Pies and assemble the chocolate oreo cake for the birthday party.

The chocolate oreo cake, which in my opinion, tasted better than it looked. I had just plonked on some power ranger toys as decoration, coz that's what the kid wanted. Then again, I spent all of 15 minutes icing it, with ganache.

These chicken pies sold out like hotcakes at the tea party. It was a last minute inclusion in the menu. Quite handy albeit a bit more costly to use the disposal tin foil pie containers.

The scones which were also popular, but not as popular as the pies.

Although I did get the following compliments for the scones:

wendy says:
oi! your scones were lovely...

datin says:
Scones r crazy! We went berserk. Orga*****.

HOW FLATTERING!!!!!!! WOO HOOO!!!!

All Kinds Of New Experiments

I've been dying to try these Mini Beef Pies In Guinness (Stout) that I saw in AWW. It's meant to be finger food, and are bite sized, the size of the mini muffins....which in my opinion, is too small, and too much work. The ingredients call for beef, guinness stout, beef stock etc...and ready rolled shortcrust pastry.

Mid valley megamall at the moment is quite an exasperating place to do grocery shopping, coz both Carrefour and Jusco are undergoing renovation, and half the stuff is not available, which includes, PASTRY. So I am combing the mall on Thursday night is a futile quest for ready made shortcrust.

Conclusion : The supermarket that sells the most variety of ready pastry, is Village Grocer, Bangsar Village. You can get Pampas Puff Pastry, Shortcrust, Borg Puff Pastry, Canola Pastry, Filo, etc etc...Not even cold storage has that variety.

I decided to experiment on my cell group first, on Friday night. Beef in guinness stout is not everyone's cup of tea, or stout, or beer. Anyway, I decided on an assortment of puff and shortcrust pastry. Now, since I couldnt find ready rolled shortcrust, I had to contend with the block of shortcrust, which you have to roll yourself. And as I forgot to defrost it early enough, it was still too hard. After zapping in microwave, it was too soft. Looked like a disaster from +the word go

Muffin Sized (not mini muffin) Beef Pies in Guinness

For my main event on Saturday, I got lazy, and made just one big pie

Also made cream puffs,


with very badly made custard, that turned out looking like scrambled eggs.



I must try to make a creme patisserie from scratch.

Friend ordered a durian cake, which I had to make by Sunday night. As it is chock full of fresh cream, I hope that along the way, the cream doesn't melt, in transit. Unlike some commercial cakes, that use non dairy cream, which hold its form, fresh cream melts darn fast. Again, this is a guinea pig case.... It's my first attempt at this type of durian cake, inspired of course by my recent less than pleasant experience at the cafe mentioned in previous post.




On Saturday night, I got an emergency order from friend, for birthday cake with purple icing. Decorative cakes are not my forte, but since she wasn't in a position to be choosy, I relented. (which was a bad idea coz was up till 4am on Saturday partying, and was sleep deprived on Sunday). Forgot to take a picture of the purple cake.

As I was getting the cake ready, I get YET another SOS from friend, who said her restaurant had run out of dessert. It was 2.30pm, and she was picking up purple cake at 4.30pm, so the only dessert I could quickly whip up for her was the peach and banana crumble.