It's begining to look a lot like Christmas!

I must say that a pudding for dessert isn't the best idea after an indulgent weekend away in Daylesford and eating at the Lake House or when the weather is in the high 30's as its been this week. Still, we're looking at the run-up to Christmas and what better way then to get into the mood with a pre-Christmas pudding! I missed out on getting some beautifully produced puddings from A Pud for All Seasons, both at the Slow Food Market (at the Abbotsford Convent a couple of weekends ago) as well as when we went up country for the weekend and passed by their factory at Elphinstone. So I decided to make my own seeing that I had a bag of dates in the pantry and a recipe flagged for some time to try!

A and I both have a fond weakness for sweet sticky desserts and sticky date pudding happens to be one of our favourites. I've always thought that there was something Christmassy about having a date pudding – with all that lovely caramelized and slightly spicy overtones it connotes!

I thought dates and it's lovely sweet nuances would definitely put us in the mood for all the gift-wrapping after dinner and happily set to making it seeing I had just 16 more days till we leave Melbourne and a whole bag-ful to finish up. Yummy goodness and perfect comfort food, it's perhaps a tad heavy for a summer evening seeing that all the berries and stone fruits have come into season. But making a sticky date pudding is also an exercise in simplicity and will keep nicely in the fridge for those tricky moments between meals when one's tummy craves for a little sustenance.

A is of course thrilled that I have finally decided to make a sticky date pudding and that must have been the reason why he returned earlier than expected with a "Pudding...where's the pudding?" instead of the expected kiss on the cheek!

This recipe comes from a fabulous cookbook, The Cook's Companion, by Melbourne's doyen of cooking, Stephanie Alexander.

Sticky Toffee Pudding (serves 8)

Ingredients:
170g dates, stoned and chopped
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
300ml boiling water
60g unsalted butter
¾ cup castor or brown sugar
2 eggs
170g self-raising flour
½ tsp pure vanilla
** 100g dark chocolate chips/ chopped bittersweet chocolate (optional)

Sauce
400g brown sugar
1 cup thick cream
250g unsalted butter
1 vanilla bean, split

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180'C and butter an 18cm square cake tin.
2. Mix dates and bicarbonate of sofa. Pour over water and leave to stand.
3. Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Fold flour in gently, then stir in date mixture and vanilla and pour into prepared tin.
4. Bake in centre of oven for 30 – 40 minutes until cooked when tested with a sker.
5. To make the sauce, bring all the ingredients to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove vanilla bean.

6. Pour a little sauce over warm pudding and return it to oven for 2-3 minutes so sauce soaks in.

7. Cut pudding into squares and pass extra sauce.

Another lazy weekend away

The lovely view from a lookout on Arthur's Seat of the Mornington

Peninsula - Sorrento where we are headed is located around the curve

A couple of weekends ago, A and I drove down to the Mornington Peninsula to spend part of the weekend with friends from Singapore. As always, we will happily take up any excuse to see a different part of Victoria and this is a lovely one indeed. It has many wineries, great restaurants, lovely sea views, quaint townships that straddle the divide between country and city very well (since they are mostly well-equipped with fantastic bakeries, coffee joints and boutiques).

Since our friends were staying at Rye, we decide to stay close by at Sorrento, which has a lovely beach-side location, plenty of interesting shops and a long beach front for walks. Unfortunately, by the time we reach Sorrento, I'm scarcely fit to walk anywhere much less check out any shops! It was as much as I could do to make some small talk with our host, John, at Dougal's B&B while A attends to all the checking-in matters and when I could finally crawl into bed for a snooze, I slept blessedly for an hour. All this because of a splendid afternoon lunch at the Vines of Red Hill....

Vines of Red Hill

Lunch at the Vines was the big highlight of our weekend, other than catching up with our friends of course! One of my invaluable resources here has been the 2007 Age's Good Food Guide (to Melbourne and regional Victoria); it's helped us plan our trips around Victoria, taking into account which restaurants are along the way. I would also have bought the Foodie's Guide to Melbourne & Regional Victoria 2007 but on flipping through, realised that I already knew many of these shops. We've been quite fortunate that our neighbourhood has many of the great food places/shops/purveyors listed inside. So when the Good Food Guide listed Vines as the only Chef's Hat rated restaurant on the Mornington Peninsula, we decided a visit should be on the cards.

The view from the restaurant terrace

Situated in the vineyard area of Red Hill on the Mornington Peninsula, the Vines overlooks neat rows of hanging vines and is ringed with wild lavendar. It's a lovely place for lunch especially out on the terrace on a sunny day and I can imagine it would look beautiful at night with lots of candles flickering. Unfortunately, the Vines was booked out for a wedding the day we got in so we had to settle for lunch, which worked out quite well with our plans in any event since we would only be meeting Val and Justyn on Sunday instead. Certainly, it would have been quite perilous to drive back to Sorrento after dinner since we had to traverse windy roads past Arthur's Seat (the kind with near 360' pinturns!!) and these are roads for clearheaded drivers, which we weren't well... not after we had such a wonderful lunch at the Vines!

From the word "go", lunch was a close to 3 hour long session of indulgence. Chef Steve Davidson's food is beautifully presented, in generous but not overflowing portions, and delights with every mouthful. However, because the portions looked just right and each bite wasn't cloying or overly rich, we had underestimated the capacity of our stomachs! After finishing the entrees and the mains, we thought we could manage a dessert each and that was the absolute killer leaving both of us a little glassy-eyed albeit nicely sated. Here's what we had:

Entrees

After we order, our server brought out a bowl of freshly baked bread (really yummy stuff!) and a trio of salted butter, olive tapenade and light fruity olive oil, the latter being locally grown in the Mornington Peninsula.

That day was turning out to be a rather hot day so we decided to skip the soup on the menu(although butternut pumpkin soup is a favourite of mine) and order something else.

A decided on the spatchcock, which came with its roasted breast with livers, foie gras and herbed brioche gratin and rolled leg ballotine with rocket, together with truffle infused polenta and port-reduced shallots. This was simply yummy - the smell of the truffle subtly whets one's appetite for the spatchcock, which is very nicely done (not too dry as smaller fowls tend to be if overcooked). The polenta had the nice texture and almost similar taste to very good whipped potatoes and was perfect sopping up the jus on the dish. A of course, was delighted by the generous nugget of foie gras nestled in the polenta and just as I thought he was going to polish it off, had the presence of mind to leave me half of it to try. That took some self-control since he simply loves foie gras (to the horror of my mom)! A had the Vines' house label shiraz, which robust flavours was the perfect complement to the intense flavours of his entree.

My dish seemed rather simple in comparison, certainly with none of the complex flavours that A's had. However, executed well, oysters are the perfect starting point for any meal and the chef definitely got this dish right. While I'm not usually a fan of oysters (preferring to have just 1 or 2 and not half a dozen), this dish sounded light and cool for the hot afternoon. Freshly shucked, the 6 Coffin Bay oysters were served with lime marinated yellow fin tuna, Yarra Valley salmon caviar and avocado and herb salsa. The accompaniments to the oysters didn't overpower its natural briny taste and instead added depth and interest to each bite - each caviar roe bursting with flavour as you chew the oyster, the lime adding a slight tart taste to the overall sweetness of the avocado and tuna. The Vines house label Gewurtztraminer, being light, fruity and slightly sweet, was a lovely accompaniment to the oysters.

By now, A and I have these slightly blissed out looks on our faces, and when our server comes over, she smiles when she sees we have mopped up every scrap of our dishes and receives our effusive praises graciously. Thankfully, she allows some time to lapse before bringing out our mains so A and I have time to take in the scenic views of rolling vineyards, wildflowers and lavendar bushes and catch up on the events of the week.

Mains

When our server brings forth the mains, A is almost hopping with delight at the supremely large portion of the rib eye on his plate. Generously portioned, his char-grilled Mornington Peninsula grain fed rib eye came with a double potato and prosciutto stack, green beans, local horseradish cream and a light shiraz reduction. Simply done, but very effective on the taste scale, a lot of the credit must go to the chef for using fresh local produce and bringing out the best of each item.

I had decided earlier to order the duck breast, which would be served pink and comes with baby beetroot, cress and walnut salad, butter beans, corn and duck leg pancake and a Jasmine tea reduction. This is superb - ordinarily, my appetite for very rich dishes is a small one and I don't always eat the entire duck breast, preferring just to pick off someone's plate or have it as an appetizer instead. This time, I polish off my plate (with the exception of several pieces of duck reluctantly surrendered to A) and mopped up every scrap of jus with the flavourful duck slices. Although it comes slightly overdone, the pieces of duck breast are tender and juicy and sop up the Jasmine tea reduction perfectly well. I liked the reduction in particular (a not unusual combination with duck given that there is the classic Chinese tea-smoked duck) and how the reduction only had a faint hint of Jasmine tea.

Dessert

By the time we finish off our mains, we are both slightly stuffed and definitely pondering if dessert is a good idea. One look at the menu and greed takes over prudence - I can't resist trying the slow baked chocolate tart with passion fruit ice cream and pistachio biscuit and since I refused to share mine with A, he chooses the local apple and puff pastry tart with malt cream and Red Hill honey ice cream. Both are the perfect end to our lovely meal. The dark chocolate tart in particular, gives an intense shock to the system with each mouthful and the slightly tart passionfruit ice cream offsets the richness of the chocolate.

A's apple puff pastry tart is really good as well and lends credence to the saying that sometimes, the simplest things turn out the best. I often wish my puff pastry would turn out as nice and flaky as this one, but I guess that's why there are pastry chefs and there are home cooks like me! We leave the Vines with some reluctance to dispel the magic woven by the food, the peaceful setting and the perfect weather - too often, we have been caught out by the weather on our trips out, which mars slightly an otherwise lovely experience, but today, we are lucky on all counts.

Owing to our heavy lunch, dinner that night is a simple fish and chips from the chippie shop in Sorrento after spending the evening walking the Sorrento foreshore and catching the sunset. We play Trivial Pursuit in our B&B after and retire early for the night.

The next day, we enjoy a lovely breakfast and have a good time chatting with the other couples at the breakfast table. In what is becoming a common occurrence so far, we rose from the table quite late at 11 am (and A and I had been the first ones at 830am too!) and quickly clear off to meet Val and Justyn for lunch at Stillwater at Crittendon in Dromana.

Again another lazy afternoon, but this time, we go easy on the food (mainly just entrees and desserts) and instead polish off 3 bottles of very good sauvignon blanc. After all, the focus this time was on catching up with our friends and 3 hours go by really quickly before they have to scoot off to view a house down at Portsea and we arrange to meet at the National Golf Club at Cape Schank for coffee with ocean views later on in the afternoon.

With a couple of hours free, A and I go check out the various produce places and load up on locally produced apple juice, first harvest cherries and Desiree potatoes. Visiting produce farms and sampling their wares in each region we visit is one of my favourite activities, and recalls to mind my childhood holidays with my parents spent picking strawberries and visiting orchards. We also visit the Gordon Studio Glassblowers with very lovely sculptural glass pieces and with very little time remaining before we have to drive to Cape Schank, we stop by the Red Hill Art Gallery to browse the pieces. The friendly owner offers to show us his farm and before we know it, we are taken to see his very very cute alpacas and A has a go at feeding them. One alpaca in particular catches our eye, it looking very much like an Ewok and for the most part, they are docile and relatively friendly (with A at least who is holding the feed) although they do occasionally spit and hiss and kick at each other.

We end off a lovely weekend trip taking coffee with Val and Justyn at the National's clubhouse overlooking the putting greens with the spectacular ocean views in the background playing off the setting sun.

The all-important contact details:

Vines of Red Hill
150 Red Hill Road, Red Hill Mornington Peninsula
Tel: (03) 5989 2977

Chef's Hat - 1 with a rating of 15/20
Definitely call ahead (suggest at least 1 or 2 weeks in advance) to reserve a spot as this place seats just 80 and fills up quickly for the prime Saturday night bookings. I had called the week before and was told that Friday and Saturday night and Sunday afternoon were fully booked. Also, as this is a popular wedding venue, there may be nights which the restaurant does not open to the public either. The dishes we had were from the menu for the 17th to 19th November so next time you visit, there is likely to be something new!

What keeps me busy most days

I'm commonly asked (as is A) what I do with my time here now that I'm not working. Initially, keeping myself occupied and filling the hours was a tough task, me waking up promptly at 7:30 am and fidgeting around the house and checking my email every couple of hours. Now, it's a breeze finding activities to do to fill the hours every day!

A lot of my friends are now calling me a "domestic goddess", hopefully with the image of the luscious Nigella Lawson in mind! I guess it's because a lot of my time now revolves around cooking and food and shopping for food. I spend many happy hours walking past the swanky boutiques on Chapel Street until I reach its extreme end in the district of Windsor to wallow in the op shops with their extensive collection of vintage cooking books (how quaint are recipes for good old 70s and 80s classics like prawn cocktail, avocado and trout pate with Melba toast and Steak Diane?!) and browsing the shelves at a favourite shop, Flavours Herbs and Spices, for spices, herbs and other cooking equipment. Walking back along Chapel Street, I look at the lovely cakes at Patterson's Cakes, and the many other old-fashioned cake shops (with garishly decorated cupcakes) along the way. Sometimes, I pop to the Prahran Market to check out the produce at the organic supermarket there although by now I do most of my shopping at the cheaper Chinese produce market (the Fresh Supermarket on Chapel Street, Prahran). Other times, I swing by special providores such as Oliveria - a Melbourne institution (particularly amongst chefs) specialising in olive-based products and is best known for its range of olive oils.

I am usually unable to resist buying something new to try and a week back, having run out of olive oil (the normal kind from the supermarkets), I finally decide to try the olive oil sourced by Oliveria from various parts of the world - ranging from Spain, Australia, Italy and even France. These oils are decanted from huge stainless steel buckets into individual packets and because they are packaged under Oliveria's own label, the cost of trying these oils are significantly lowered.

First, one has to decide on the type of olive oil one wants - spicy, fruity, mild.... the various attributes of olive oil is unending. Buying olive oil can be akin to buying wine - you definitely have to try some before deciding. After sampling a variety, I decide on the Chef's Choice olive oil, which I'm told is a popular choice amongst many Melbourne chefs. Later that night, drizzled over a rocket salad and served separately with some of my Tomato Powder (from New York) as a dip for bread, I can see why this olive oil is in demand!

I don't just spend all my time drooling over the produce in specialist shops or a lazy afternoon reading the latest cookbooks at Borders (just a short 10 minute walk away!) or cooking up dinner. For the past couple of months, I've been faithfully tying on the apron and whacking on the oven to try my hand at a variety of bakes - cakes, slices, muffins and biscuits. I'm way past the first time I made pastry after many years, although there are some near misses (like the time I tweaked my Chocolate Peanut Cookie recipe with orange marmalade instead and turned out a dense chewy cookie, which thankfully A still loved).

The latest recipe I try is a Double Chocolate Muffin from the Everyday Cooking book I'm so attached to. Originally a Triple Chocolate Muffin (how's that for chocolate overload?!), I leave out the white chocolate chips and chocolate fudge icing the recipe calls for and instead add in freshly chopped dark chocolate with the dark chocolate chips I'm using. I don't have any more chocolate in the fridge to make the icing so I use my beloved Nutino instead. Instant yums!

My Double Chocolate Muffin

(makes 8 - 9)

Ingredients:

150g (1 cup) self-raising flour
50g (1/2 cup) cocoa
90g (1/2 cup) soft brown sugar
165ml (2/3 cup) milk
60g (4 tbsp) butter, melted and cooled
1 egg
90g (1/4 cup) dark chocolate chips and dark chocolate chopped up, mixed
Chocolate fudge icing or Nutino for icing

Method:

Preheat oven to 180'C and line 8 x 125ml (1/2 cup) muffin pans with paper cases.
Sift the flour and cocoa together, then add brown sugar and stir through. Whisk the milk, melted butter and egg together.
Add the wet mix to the dry mix and whisk together until it forms a smooth batter. Fold through the chocolate chips and bits.
Spoon the mix into the prepared muffin tins and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until risen and golden brown.
Allow to cool, then top with Nutino frosting or the traditional chocolate fudge icing if desired.

The prepared mix all ready to be bunged into the oven

The muffins before the Nutino icing is spread

These muffins are probably not something you'd want to eat every day, but these are no doubt fantastic once in while!

Check out Oliveria at:

Pran Central Shopping Centre, Shop G36
Corner of Commercial Rd. & Cato St, Prahran
Tel: (03) 9510 0690

When the Weather Outside is Frightful

It's only a couple of weeks to go till summer rolls around but we're seeing wintry conditions these couple of days here in Melbourne. Since Monday, there have been intermittent showers and cold snaps culminating in a marvellous downpour complete with hailstones today (marvellous for the drought-stricken farming regions in Victoria that is, not so much for this shivering girl typing away with cold feet in booties). The temperature right now, despite the sun peeping out, is hovering somewhere about 8'C so I'm definitely glad to be snug and warm indoors.

Back in Singapore, days like today would be a welcome respite from the sweltering heat and if one is fortunate enough to be snuggling on your couch with a book, definitely an opportune period for doing nothing more than snoozing and reading and perhaps indulging in some pampering treats for the tummy.

I had earlier in the day started off with a pampering treat (purely by accident since I had made the appointment a while ago) when I went to try the Skin Quench facial at Aesop's South Yarra branch seeing that it was a short 7 minute walk away and was glad to be cosseted with warm oil and wrapped in blankets as the wind howled outside. Of course, the walk back home was enough to take my breath away so after lunch and working on some projects, I decided to treat myself to a cuppa and a couple of slices of the Orange Marmalade Cake I'd made last night.

Not the neatest slices of cake ever but these are so rich, they're better cut into smaller slices to enjoy

Made from a recipe from Campion and Curtis' Everyday Cooking (my favourite cookbook right now), the blurb to the recipe promises that a slice of this cake would be perfect for autumnal afternoons with a pot of tea. I decide today's weather qualifies as vaguely "autumnal" and reach for a couple of slices of that comforting cake. All rich buttery goodness, with a tinge of orange cutting through the richness, it needs only a freshly brewed cup of coffee/tea and a good book (which by luck, I had just bought a copy of "Every Living Thing" by a favourite childhood author, James Herriot).

Orange Marmalade Cake
(Serves 6-8 persons)

Ingredients:

220g soft butter
180g (3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp) caster sugar
Zest of 1 orange, chopped or grated
3 eggs
300g (2 cups) self-raising flour, sifted
60ml (1/4 cup) orange juice
½ cup orange marmalade

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180'C. Butter a 22cm springform cake tin, line the sides and bottom with greaseproof paper and butter lightly.
Cream the butter, caster sugar and orange zest until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one by one, fully incorporating each one before adding the next. Carefully fold in the flour, along with the orange juice. Finally, fold in the marmalade.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes. Test the cake by inserting a skewer. If it comes out clean, the cake is ready; if it doesn't, cook for a further 5 minutes and test again.

Another perfect treat for today (if I had any left after A took the remaining one to the office this morning) would have been the Jam Donut Muffins I made on the weekend. Bored stiff waiting for A to finish his work so we could go for dinner, I rummaged around in the fridge and scanned Everyday Cooking for a suitable recipe.

Here's the recipe for Jam Donut Muffins, to which the Campion and Curtis team described as tasting just "like a donut but with only a fraction of the work". A had to ask me to explain many times over why it was called a Jam Donut Muffin but whatever it is called, it sure is a good munch! You can substitute the jam filling with Nutella or in my case, my beloved Nutino…

Jam Doughnut Muffins
(Makes 10- 12 muffins)

Ingredients:

250g (12/3 cups) self-raising flour
Pinch of salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
80ml (1/3 cup) vegetable oil
150g (2/3 cup) caster sugar
1 egg
185ml (3/4 cup) milk
Raspberry jam / Nutino
75g melted butter
150g (2/3 cup) caster sugar, additional
1 tsp ground cinnamon, additional

Method:

Preheat oven to 180'C. Line 10 – 12 x 125ml (1/2 cup) muffin pans with paper cases.
Sift the flour, salt and cinnamon into a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the oil, caster sugar, egg and milk together. Add to the flour and stir well until combined.
Half-fill the prepared muffin tins with the mixture, add ½ tsp of jam/Nutino to each muffin and cover with more batter. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until risen and golden brown.
Mix the melted butter, additional caster sugar and cinnamon together. When the muffins are cooked, remove them from the tins and dip their tops into the cinnamon and sugar mix, then place them onto a rack to cool.

You can see how much filling I've stuffed the muffins with!

Dipping the muffins into the cinnamon sugar mixture

Just a suggestion – it's tempting to stuff as much filling as you can past the recommended ½ teaspoon but do so at your own peril. I had half my muffins burst and spill its contents onto the muffin tray because I was overzealous in chucking in at least 1 teaspoon of Nutino or jam!

Snack Time Munchies

A and I are just back from a long weekend trip down the Great Ocean Road. The long distances between the little towns and sights means many hours in the car before a suitable snack joint turns up to cater to a hunger attack coming out of nowhere. I gave this some thought before we set off as A would be doing most of the driving and I didn't want him to get cranky or distracted, seeing that he likes to snack when he's bordering on being hungry. Also, we'd be covering a lot of ground on Day 1 and wouldn't have time to stop for a proper sit-down lunch, so a picnic lunch was definitely in order.

On Friday evening, I started assembling our picnic lunch for Day 1. I whipped up sandwiches of mashed hardboiled eggs (mixed with chopped celery leaves, chopped onions, a pinch of curry powder and salt, lots of freshly ground black pepper, bound together with a generous lashing of leftover cream in the fridge), packed 2 oranges, 2 slices of the One Pot Chocolate Cake I'd made a couple of days before, and 12 of these yummy cookies I'd baked earlier that evening.

What I loved about these cookies was how simple they were to make and that they didn't have esoteric ingredients which I'd have to hunt high and low for. As I said previously, I'm patient with my cooking but I'm still lazy about attempting those complicated recipes with many different ingredients! If a recipe has 8 to 10 different ingredients for each component (i.e. icing, filling, cake base), my eyes glaze over immediately. Also, I was short on time that evening, so I needed to make a batch of homely comfort food cookies without too much fuss.

It was a good time as any time to try out another recipe I'd flagged in Campion and Curtis' Everyday Cooking, my latest cookbook acquisition. The end results are really good for a simple recipe such as this one. A chomped his way through a couple that Friday night itself and these cookies were much-needed energy boosters on our long walks around the rainforest/wildlife reserve/waterfalls/lighthouses on this trip.

Chocolate Peanut Cookies

(Makes between 25 - 30 chunky cookies)

Ingredients:

125g soft butter
125g crunchy peanut butter
100g brown sugar, firmly packed
110g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
225g self-raising flour
95g chocolate chips (or as much as you can cram into each cookie dough ball!)

Method:

Preheat oven to 180'C. Line baking trays with baking paper.

Cream the butter, peanut butter, sugars and vanilla together until pale and fluffy. Add the egg and beat until combined.

After a lot of muscle work on my part, this is what the creamed mixture should look like.

Add the flour (progressively for a smoother mix) and mix together, then stir in the chocolate chips.

Roll level teaspoons of the mixture into balls and place them 3cm apart on the prepared baking trays. Flatten slightly using a fork.

Flattening the cookie balls with a fork

Bake in the preheated oven for 10 – 12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from trays and leave to cool on a cooling rack, then store in an airtight container.

The finished product - yummy snack munchies!

Some comments:

• I used extra chunky peanut butter from Skippy's instead of the normal chunky peanut butter. This was so chunky that there was hardly any "butter" in it; that's why it's been sitting in our fridge for yonks without being spread on toast at all! I've since found out it's perfect for making these cookies.
• I like to add the flour progressively as 225g is quite a lot to dump in at one go.
  I wasn't so precise with the teaspoon measuring of the dough, but chose instead to just grab whatever I liked. I ended up with chunkier cookies as a result as the balls I rolled were probably much bigger than what the recipe intended.
• As not everyone is going to be so precise with their measuring of the dough mixture, baking time will therefore need to be adjusted accordingly until the cookies are done. A good test is to check if they are still soft when pressed slightly, bearing in mind that cookies do harden when they cool. If still soft when pressed, bake for further intervals of 1 minute each time until desired shade of golden brown.
• I like more chocolate chips in mine so I studded most of the balls with a couple more extra chips before popping them in the oven.

Chocolate is a cure....

for days like today.

For the first time in many weeks, Melbourne finally sees rain and quite a fair bit of it too with showers throughout the whole day. With my luck, it's also happens to be the day that I have to traipse around the CBD for class at the Centre for Adult Education.

Today's the first lesson for a course in resin jewellery and sculpture that I signed up for a couple of months ago. I was all excited about producing some beautiful resin bangles and receptacles like those at the expensive but oh so luxe Dinosaur Designs but was disabused of this notion early on in the lesson since we don't actually work with resin until the next lesson. We spend most of our 3 hours discussing how to cast a rubber mold (for the resin), the objects suitable for making a mold (all of my bowls failed our instructor's requirements – there went any thoughts of producing a Dinosaur Design lookalike) and then actually making the rubber mold.

We start first with creating the clay exterior and that alone took me ages and ages and even then, still needed reshaping by the instructor. I forgot to mention earlier that I'm the girl who routinely failed her craft projects in school so when I was handling the sticky stuff, that gave me horrible flashbacks of my ay sculpture that hardened into an unmentionable shape because my patience gave up before I finished it. Then came the mixing of the rubber and the active agent, and the pouring of the rubber from a height in a thin thin stream ("You're pouring too fast!! TOO FAST!!"), which suitably chastened, I managed to get right eventually after several screams of "SLOWER!!" from the teacher. 15 minutes later, my arms are screaming blue murder and I was wondering what I'd signed myself up for.

Strangely enough, I'm not half as impatient when I cook or bake, although I'm still not patient enough to sit with a tiered cake on a lazy susan and pipe elaborate twirls. Maybe it's because most of the time, end products for cooking/baking sessions don't quite take the whole day to emerge (unless you're making a Christmas fruit cake, in which case the whole process probably takes a month before you unearth the cake for consumption). Of course, I do love recipes that produce results in a snap and that's why lazy me had flagged this recipe in Allan Campion and Michelle Curtis' new cookbook "Everyday Cooking" alone for it's title "One-Pot Chocolate Cake". I was quite gratified to realise after finishing that I REALLY only had the pot, the wooden spoon and the springform tin to wash!

I've come across better chocolate cake recipes but this recipe isn't all bad, seeing that it doesn't require an electric beater or food processor (i.e. perfect for me as I have really basic equipment here!) or 12 eggs ("Eve's Chocolate Cake" from Damien Pignolet's "French" which scared me with the thought of cholesterol counting) although it does require 1 whole 250g slab of butter. And it definitely tastes much better with keeping as the recipe promised so you can make it in advance for a party! To cut down on more washing, I skip making chocolate ganache and use my new obsession, Nutino, as a quick icing instead. YUMS!

With a splash of thickened cream and sprinkle of cocoa powder (mine looks quite unartistic I know but then again, that's me - the unartistic girl! And apparently sprinkling the powder doesn't quite look the same as using a sift .....), this One-Pot Chocolate Cake does hit the spot after a frazzling morning grappling with goopy materials and getting my new Bonds top clay-streaked.

One-Pot Chocolate Cake
(serves 6-8)

Ingredients

250g soft butter
150g dark chocolate, chopped
220g caster sugar
250ml strong coffee, cooled completely
150g plain flour
100g self raising flour
50g baking cocoa
2 eggs (medium sized weighing about 59g each)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180'C. Butter a 22cm springform cake tin, line the sides and bottom with greaseproof paper and butter lightly.
Place the butter, chocolate, caster sugar and coffee in a large saucepan. Cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally until everything melts. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.
Sift the flours and cocoa together and add to the cooled chocolate mixture, along with the eggs. Beat well until all ingredients are combined.
Spoon into the prepared cake tin and bake in the prepared oven for 45 minutes. Test the cake by inserting a skewer. If it comes out clean, the cake is ready; if it doesn't, cook for a further 5 minutes and test again.

My New Obsession...

comes in the form of the gooey yumminess I've been scooping out of this bottle.

I came back this weekend from a week's worth of meetings in Singapore and a frenzied round of catching up with girlfriends to find the fridge bare. A was away in Hong Kong for part of the week and hadn't found time to get to the market. So in between all the cleaning, unpacking and catching up on sleep this weekend, we took a quick trip down to Safeway yesterday to stock up on some food.

For some reason, I'm having a sudden and very intense craving for hazelnut spread. Perhaps the Swedish cookies with hazelnut spread that I picked up at the Singapore Ikea earlier last week triggered this mad craving since I only managed to have a couple in the midst of my hectic schedule. Whatever I had had was enough to leave me wanting more which is strange 'cos I've never been a fan of anything hazelnut-based much less Nutella. A though, has very fond memories of Nutella and eagerly seconded my suggestion we get a bottle. So we headed first to the "Jams & Spreads" shelf at Safeway and that's when I spotted Nutino.

Touted as the perfect compliment to any snack or meal, Nutino is made in Italy from freshly roasted hazelnuts, skim milk and chocolate. Yummy... and perfect in my mind for recreating some spectacular desserts I'd had recently involving hazelnut. One yummy dessert called "Pizza con Nutella" comprised a crisp, thin pizza base topped with hazelnut spread and sprinkled with coarsely pounded hazelnuts and icing sugar, which A and I had in the open-air courtyard garden of La Lanterna di Vittorio during our recent New York trip. We had to thank our friend C for the introduction to this Italian cafe-coffee shop (as it's touted) which uses premium hazelnut spread from Italy for the Pizza con Nutella. Perhaps the close association of "Italian coffee shop" and Italian made hazelnut spread did it for me cos I picked up the jar of Nutino withouth a moment's hesitation, cheesy squirrel picture notwithstanding!

Anyway, let's just say that Nutino proved to be more enticing than Nutella and definitely much smoother in taste. I've never been a huge fan of Nutella, finding it a tad bit too sweet and paste-like for my taste. Nutino on the other hand, is smooth and creamy, balancing just the right amount of sweetness with the nutty taste of hazelnuts evident throughout. I've had my fingers stuck in that jar since we came back, spooning Nutino spread over our butter cookies, stirring it into my coffee and cream (which makes for a lovely mocha-like drink) and thinning it out with some hot cream to make a hazelnut sauce to pair with icecream. But perhaps the best way of eating Nutino is simply to make like a kid (as we all used to do with condensed milk and milo!) and sail into that jar with a spoon!

There's probably heaps of ways to eat hazelnut spread but one of my favourites is using it as a dip for bananas, strawberries and kiwifruit. I also like it as a filling to sponge cakes and maybe one day when I get that icecream maker, I'll have hazelnut icecream as good as the gelatos I've had in Italy. If any of you find Nutino in the supermarkets back in Singapore, tell me! Otherwise, I'm shipping back a box!

The Drama in a Birthday Cake

Birthday cake for my dad and a golfing buddy

Birthdays are always great occasions to splash out and have some fun. Besides the thrill in matching the right gift to the birthday person, there's also lots of fun planning the party and the food. I always think the highlight of the party is the moment the birthday cake is brought out!

When we were kids, birthday cakes were elaborate creations (in our time, Spiderman & Strawberry Shortcake cakes were popular) and having a cake in the figure of the cartoon character would leave you the subject of envy amongst your friends at the party.

As we grew older, the focus turned more to the cake itself and decorations were usually limited to a simple piped birthday greeting in icing. After all, we adults rationalised that the cake would be devoured in no time and I think most of us would rather forget that we're another year older! Thankfully, my mom decided to put back the fun and drama back into birthday cakes for the birthdays of family member over the last couple of years.

It started when my mom met Beng Li Sher, a couple of years ago. Li Sher had left legal practice and attended Le Cordon Bleu for their patissier course. Upon her return to Singapore, she started her own business doing custom-themed cakes, most popular of which are the cakes with hand-crafted sugar paste figurines.

Book of Life & Goldilocks & the 3 Bears

Our family has been ordering birthday cakes from her since then and each time, we have been greatly entertained at Li Sher's accurate characterisation of the birthday person derived from personal information provided to her. Whimsical flights of fantasy, the birthday cakes have since ranged from golf-themed cakes for my dad and his golf buddies, to our pet zoo on my mom's, and to Goldilocks and the 3 Bears for my niece's birthday a couple of years ago.

You probably have to look really hard

but there's a pile of cash at A's feet!

More recently when we arrived back in Singapore, we celebrated the birthdays of my cousin Mel and A with a tiered cake with figurines depicting them at their current stages in life. Mel recently graduated from university and is about to start working life (WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD MEL!), while A joined a new company earlier this year.

Li Sher's cake is a rich chocolate ganache, definitely one for the chocoholics out there. It keeps quite well in the fridge so no worries if you can't quite manage more than one slice that night! While the sugar paste figurines are definitely edible, most of the recipients of the cakes have chosen to take them home with them instead. Last I checked, my niece still looks in on the 3 Bears sitting in her fridge and our pet zoo continues to reign in ours!

Besides the figurine cakes, Li Sher also does amazing 3D cakes and cupcakes as well. At Christmas, she usually puts out a selection of Christmas cupcakes and cookies which make great gifts to friends and family. Li Sher also works with a caterer to provide an all-round catering service for any functions you may have.

Do note that as the cakes are very labour intensive creations and Li Sher is often very busy with orders, you would do well to give her sufficient notice if you require a cake!

To order cakes from Li Sher and to view samples of her work, check out her website, Hot Fuchsia.

A's Baking Adventures - A Touch of Chocolate

A's been expressing an intention to get his hands dirty in the kitchen for the last couple of years. I rarely take him at his word, except to help me out occasionally with slicing onions, garlic and general prep work. Other than the sole occasion that he cooked his special pasta for me (in our first few months of dating), he hasn't tried his hand at anything else since.

However, after tasting the Sultana Syrup Cake I made a couple of weeks ago and learning that the recipe was really simple, A decided he wanted to have a go at the same over the weekend. I'd also been meaning to do my first post on chocolate for some time and had earmarked a couple of recipes to try. Seeing that A would be doing this for the first time, I decided to leave Damien Pignolet's "Eve's Chocolate Cake" for another occasion and try a simple Molten Chocolate Pudding instead. It would also allow me to finally use the new pot pie dishes I bought from Robert Gordon a couple of weeks back.

We decide the Molten Chocolate Puddings would make a lovely late night dessert and accordingly, we drive over for dinner at a Vietnamese eatery on Victoria Street, Richmond, which we had heard about from A's colleague. We'd been to Bridge Road in Richmond for the outlet shopping a couple of times, as well as for lunch at Richmond Hill Café & Larder and for ramen at Momotaro's but had never headed north to the parallel Victoria Street. Victoria Street is locally known as "Little Vietnam" with Asian grocery stores, butchers and Vietnamese eateries in abundance.

Quan at 88 Victoria Street looked like any of the other restaurants offering Vietnamese/Laotian/Thai cuisine dotting the street. We had been treated the night before to enthusiastic raves about the rice paper rolls, spicy quail and salty squid and duly ordered the same dishes, together with the waiter's recommendation of Beef fried "Thai-style" with chilli and basil. The recommended dish was not only NOT Vietnamese, it catered to the Western palates that frequented the joint. What was finger-licking good however, was the spicy quail, which came in a serving of 2 wing portions dipped in a dark spicy and piquant sauce. The other dishes were tasty enough, but definitely not beating any of the concoctions offered at many of Singapore's zi-char (literally "stir-fry") places. Nevertheless, Quan offered a cheap and cheerful dinner and BYO is available (at an incredible A$0.80 corkage charge a person). We would definitely head back to Victoria Street another weekend to check out all the other offerings.

A hard at work whisking the egg yolks with caster sugar

Back to the important bit of this post – A's virgin baking experience. I start him off with the easy bits – greasing the pot pie dishes and melting the chocolate in the bain marie. I show him how to separate the egg yolks from the whites and he decides to try his hand at the last egg. I'm a firm believer in everyone trying their hand once at anything, so I hand over the egg without a bleat. Unfortunately, most of the yolk ends up on the counter and part of it with the other whites as he laments his "strong fingers"! (The eggs aren't wasted though, with the addition of another egg, they form the base of a carbonara sauce for dinner on Sunday night.)

Before....

The recipe for Molten Chocolate Puddings is easy enough and in no time, we've got the pudding ready for the oven. After 15 minutes in the oven, and a generous pouring of thickened cream over, we sat down to enjoy our dessert while watching Bette Middler on "Beaches".

After!

The Molten Chocolate Puddings turn out really well, with spongy sides and the proper molten centre. The recipe provided enough mix for 4 puddings and I put the remaining 2 puddings in the fridge. These are still yummy a couple of days later after heating the microwave (although this meant that the molten centre becomes fully cooked) as the chocolate flavour has become more pronounced. Served with a scoop of caramel icecream, this is an easy dessert to replicate at any of your dinner parties.

The next day after a huge yum cha lunch in Kew with A's colleagues, A attempted the Sultana Syrup Cake and was amazed to find the recipe easy to do (although I had to help him out with certain bits). He's thrilled to bits that he can now bake and I'm pleased that I now have an assistant in the kitchen when I attempt the more complex cakes.

Here's the recipe for Molten Chocolate Puddings, with many thanks again to Donna Hay:

Ingredients
150g dark chocolate - either cooking or eating chocolate is fine
100g unsalted butter
2 eggs
2 extra egg yolks
¼ cup caster sugar
2 tablespoons plain flour, sifted
Thickened cream to serve

1. Preheat the oven to 180'C and lightly grease 4 1-cup capacity ovenproof dishes.
2. Place the chocolate and butter in a bain marie over low heat (or a heatproof bowl set over simmering water that does not touch the bottom of the bowl) and stir until the chocolate is melted and smooth.
3. Place the eggs, extra yolks and sugar in a bowl and whisk until pale.
4. Using a metal spoon, gently fold in the flour and chocolate mixture and spoon into the greased dishes.
5. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the puddings are puffed. Top with the cream to serve. Sliced strawberries or kiwifruit on the side, optional.